Extremely high number of tornadoes for Colorado so far in 2023
When you think of where tornadoes happen, Colorado probably isn't at the top of your list. But so far in 2023, it's had the 3rd-most tornadoes behind Illinois and Alabama.
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00:00 OK, it's been a record season
00:01 for severe weather in Colorado.
00:03 Meteorologist Tony Laubach joins
00:04 us live now with a look back at
00:06 some of the records that have
00:08 been set so far this year.
00:10 Tony, it's been a busy season so far,
00:12 hasn't it?
00:13 Yes, Kevin, it has been a busy season.
00:19 It's been an odd season.
00:20 We've been talking about that pretty
00:22 much since the start of the year.
00:24 We took storms down in the Southeast
00:25 almost on the first day of the year,
00:27 and then as the storm season worked
00:29 its way on down the calendar,
00:31 it certainly worked its way up to
00:32 the North and West in the High
00:34 Plains after several very quiet
00:35 seasons have certainly peaked up here.
00:37 Let's talk about that tornado
00:38 count for the state of Colorado.
00:40 If you were with us earlier,
00:41 we talked about 1/3 of these tornadoes,
00:43 the third, almost 1/3 of the 88
00:45 tornadoes that the state of Colorado
00:46 has seen so far this year happened
00:48 on one day that is a big push to
00:51 those numbers, but we are 3rd.
00:52 Colorado's third place in terms of
00:54 states that have seen the most
00:56 tornadoes this year behind Alabama
00:57 and behind Illinois,
00:58 which is number one now.
00:59 Illinois is seeing tornadoes pretty
01:01 much nonstop throughout the year.
01:03 Colorado seeing most of their
01:04 tornadoes in the last several months.
01:06 We're still 10 shy of the all
01:08 time record set back in 1996.
01:10 Now let's give you a little history
01:12 here on some Colorado climatology
01:14 in terms of what kind of tornadoes
01:16 we expect to see out here.
01:17 You've heard the term thrown around a lot.
01:20 Landspout tornadoes.
01:20 Those are typically the weaker,
01:22 briefer tornadoes.
01:22 We see a lot of those,
01:24 which really a lot of times pads
01:26 the count that we see with tornadoes
01:28 in the state of Colorado.
01:30 Typically they're brief.
01:31 Typically they're weak and sometimes
01:32 they don't really even look
01:34 like traditional tornadoes.
01:35 They almost look like glorified dust devils.
01:37 This year would have been a little
01:39 bit different though has been the
01:41 intensity of these tornadoes we've
01:42 seen on the Akron day, June 22nd.
01:44 We saw an EF2 South Akron and then
01:46 just most recently on August 8th.
01:48 We saw an EF3 near the town of
01:50 human now coming up next hour.
01:52 Jeff Cornish and I talk a little
01:54 bit about the records that were
01:56 set this storm season and one of
01:58 the big reasons we saw such a busy
02:00 storm season here in Colorado.
02:02 Tony Law back our Colorado connection.
02:04 We appreciate your time tonight
02:05 and keep up the good work.