Severe weather on Memorial Day sparked 14 tornadoes across four Colorado counties, and a few residents got some close encounters with those twisters.
Aaron Brown and his girlfriend Martha Carrasco, sell compost off their Washington County farm and were making a delivery with Martha's two teenage daughters to Kit Carson County on Monday. They had just finished unloading the truck when they saw the first tornado touch down.
“It was just surreal, I mean you would never dream that you would be that close to them," said Aaron Brown.
They saw what looked like a second tornado forming right above their heads, so they loaded back up into their tractor-trailer to escape the scene, but it was stuck in the sand.
“That’s when I panicked a little, I said, 'ah oh, maybe we better just get out of the truck and run,'" said Carrasco.
Brown said the second tornado touched down only about 200 to 300 yards away from them. He told his family to run over to an old dried up creek bed that was nearby and get low.
“I was afraid and at the same time I was excited, I said, 'I never seen this before,'" said Carrasco.
They said the tornado went right over them while they were huddled in the ditch.
"The only thing that scared me was that we didn't know which way they were traveling," said Brown.
When the tornado passed, they raised their heads, and two more tornadoes were on the ground.
“I don’t think you can describe it. It was just amazing you know,” Carrasco said.
At that time she felt comfortable enough to pull out her cell phone and start taking pictures. She captured an amazing photo of two dirt sucking landspout tornadoes at close range, right behind the family truck.
“You know, lucky and scared to be there at that time,” said Carrasco.
And when they finally realized all the tornadoes were moving away, Martha allowed her teenage daughters Yvonne and Carolina, to use the phone to capture the moment with an epic selfie.
“And with a big smile on their face,” Carrasco said.
Meanwhile, another tornado was running through the backyard of Kelvin Bernhardt in Morgan County near Wiggins. No selfies here, but still another close-range twister on this Memorial Day.
Two tornadoes were also reported near the Pawnee National Grasslands. That is in Weld County, which already holds the famous designation for having the most tornadoes in the country. Add two more to that total.
Most of these 14 tornadoes Monday, were whats called 'landspout tornadoes. They are typically less violent than supercell tornadoes, with winds speeds generally between 60 and 90 mph, but can on occasion reach winds that exceed 100 mph.
They also don't typically last as long and cover a smaller surface area than supercell tornadoes.
A supercell tornado forms as a result of the circulation inside the thunderstorm, called a mesocyclone, working its way down below the base of the thunderstorm. They are usually noted as being attached to a lowering or a wall cloud beneath the base of the storm.
With landspout tornadoes, the vorticity, or circulation is already present in the boundary layer, which is the layer of air close to the ground, usually even before the thunderstorm moves over it or forms over it. Then a thunderstorm updraft stretches that vorticity up into the storm, and a landspout tornado is born. They are usually noted as being attached to a flat thunderstorm base without a wall cloud present.
All 14 Memorial Day tornadoes formed along a frontal boundary that provided the surface vorticity, and therefore are all likely landspouts. With the exception of maybe one of the 4 tornadoes in Kit Carson County witnesses by Martha Carrasco, and her family. There was a mid-level mesocyclone present that could have produced one supercell tornado at that time.
