Tornado-warned storms arrive in the High Plains

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Colorado on June 24 as severe storms returned to the region with the potential for tornadoes.

Transcript

00:00And for the latest, there he is. We're joined by meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach,

00:04live in Bennett, Colorado. Tony, you've got an interesting sky behind you.

00:10Yeah, and it could potentially be a tornadic sky, Jeff. This storm behind me just picked up a

00:16tornado warning in the last five minutes, just as we went on air. This storm was severe warned

00:20originally for quarter-sized hail. Now we've got some rotation evident kind of over my shoulder.

00:25This is moving right at kind of the Bennett and Strasburg areas. We're going to go straight to

00:30radar. We're going to skip the watch graphic here because this is a little bit more urgency here

00:33because this is going to be starting to work its way into populated areas along I-70 east of Denver,

00:38including the towns of Bennett and Strasburg. Some pretty good rotation with this. Really

00:43a big area right now, kind of concerned that this might be a kind of an HP type situation,

00:48a high precipitation supercell. So identifying tornadoes buried within the rain may be a

00:54little bit difficult. Typically not something we deal with very much in Colorado because our

00:59moisture is typically a little bit lower than what we have today, but we've got some humid air,

01:03a lot of juice for these storms. As a result, they're going to be pretty prolific precipitation

01:08producers. That could include the potential for some big hail as well. Right now, this storm

01:13does not have much in the way of big hail with it. We haven't heard any reports on that.

01:17Certainly could produce quarter, maybe up to golf ball size as it strengthens. But back over my

01:21shoulder again, you kind of see that darkening area between the two power lines. That is the area I am

01:27watching with the most concern right now, whether or not we're going to see this thing start to

01:31produce a tornado. I know it might be hard. If you've got a big screen TV, you might be able to see

01:35some of the colors in there. You've got a lot of teal, light greens, some good lightning coming out of

01:39this as well. But the teal and light greens are usually indicative of a lot of hail. That is pretty

01:44common here in Colorado. So in addition to the potential tornado threat with this, we could be looking at

01:50a lot of hail. Sometimes that's smaller hail that accumulates several inches deep, kind of creating

01:54snow-like conditions. Sometimes that's the bigger hail as well. So that is going to be a multi-threat

01:59we're going to see with this particular supercell. I'm going to get off air, drop south here. We'll keep

02:04the live stream on for you folks. That way they can cut in on this thing. If we continue to watch this

02:08storm, we're going to work our way south, see if we can't get a better view underneath this storm here,

02:13Damien. But currently right now, tornado warning in effect. This is south of I-70. The warning does not

02:17include Bennett and Strasburg yet, but this storm is working your way. So make sure if you guys are

02:22in those two towns, Watkins may be all the way as far east as Byers. Start thinking about taking

02:27your tornado precautions. All right, meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach, thank you so much

02:31for that update. And as we take a live look at radar, what we normally see here in the Rockies

02:36transitioning into the high plains is once these storms start to clear that I-25 corridor from Denver

02:41down through Colorado Springs, that is when the low-level rotation really starts to peak, which is why

02:46for this northern storm they're moving in Arapahoe County, that's why that storm has a tornado

02:50warning with it. But I'll also point out as we freeze frame the radar, that storm to the south

02:55that just passed Pikes Peak and is just now starting to clear to the east of Colorado Springs down through

03:00Fort Carson, that storm is also now starting to clear the I-25 corridor. So once again, the highest

03:05potential for low-level rotation for these storms, climatologically speaking, is within the first

03:1010 to 15 minutes and within the first 10 to 15 miles of the highway. So that's where that storm

03:16to the south is. So right now, the storm there just to the east of Colorado Springs is definitely

03:21going to be a hail producer. These high plains storms, especially in eastern Colorado, always

03:25produce some large hail, but we are also going to be watching out for that potential for a tornado

03:30there just to the east of Colorado Springs. But that storm that Tony's on there that's moving

03:34in primarily into Arapahoe County, we're going to be watching out for that tornado potential

03:39as well.

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