Tornado touches down

A tornado touched down last Tuesday evening during a heavy storm west of Moorcroft. Located outside populated areas, it did little damage and no injuries have been reported.

According to Corporal Ed Robinson, Crook County Sheriff’s Office, the initial report was received by dispatch at 7:25 p.m., when Dan Grace of the Moorcroft Fire Department called in that a funnel cloud had been sighted.

“At about this same time, there were numerous other social media reports going out from people who could see the funnel cloud from Moorcroft, as well as residents near where the tornado first touched down,” he says.

Dispatch received numerous calls about the tornado, which was reportedly west of Moorcroft and possibly headed towards the town. Robinson headed to the site, noting that pea-sized hail was at that time falling, along with high winds and rain in Moorcroft.

“I was told that the Moorcroft Chief was en route into town and that officers were on duty in town, as well as some fire units,” Robinson says.

“It was beginning to hail and rain heavily in the Pine Haven area, and visibility did not allow me to see any of the storm as it was approaching.”

Chief of Police Doug “Red” Lundborg advised on the radio that he was heading south on Hwy 14 and experiencing golf-ball sized hail with limited visibility and high winds, Robinson continues. For his own part, Robinson was still seeing small hail, high winds and very heavy rain, which began to increase in size as he headed east towards Pine Ridge Road.

“I asked dispatch to contact someone with Pine Haven and advise them of the coming weather,” he says.

“I kept going east and started to turn traffic around and advise them to go back to the east and not into the storm.  As I got to Pine Ridge Road and Old Sundance, the hail was getting larger and harder.”

Numerous vehicles had stopped under overpasses on the interstate to avoid the hail, Robinson said. As he continued east, he saw large amounts of cloud-to-ground lightning.

At that time, Robinson was advised that the system was hitting Sunny Divide. He asked dispatch to have Pine Haven Fire Department check the Old Sundance Rd area as he was receiving reports of road flooding; he was advised that there was some, but it was not problematic.

When Robinson reached Sundance, the storm was mostly heavy rain, wind and lightning. By 9:10 p.m., it had moved east into South Dakota.

After the storm passed, Robinson was advised, “that a section of Highway 14 at Milepost 185 had to be cleared of rocks and debris due to mud and rock slides, due to excessive water runoff.  The road was not impassable but was hazardous to small vehicles for a time.”

According to the National Weather Service, the tornado touched down at 7:28 p.m. and lasted for eight minutes until 7:36 p.m.

“Most damage from this weather incident was limited to some hail damage and some trees being damaged, such as broken limbs,” says Robinson.

“There was some minor flooding associated with the high amount of rain, but there were never any roads that were impassable. It was hard to monitor this storm from the ground due to the heavy rain and wind.”

The tornado is believed to have touched down at the Crook/Campbell County border, south of I-90 near Wessex Road. The same weather system later hit South Dakota, where it disabled the weather radar that serves this area.

At the time of the tornado, the atmosphere was reportedly very unstable over northeastern Wyoming and western South Dakota, with strong vertical wind shear that favored severe storms. A moist and unstable air mass brought humid air into the region and the strong winds well above the ground created the wind shear, which is necessary to sustain severe thunderstorms.

Moorcroft also saw the largest hail stones during the storm, reported at up to three inches, with the area south-southwest of Rozet experiencing the next largest size at a considerably smaller 1.75 inches. Beulah and the area south-southeast of Sundance also saw hail stones one inch or larger.

Wind speeds were highest in Beulah and southeast of Devils Tower at around 60 mph.

Local units that assisted during the storm include Wyoming Highway Patrol, Moorcroft Police Department, Moorcroft Fire Department, Moorcroft EMS, Pine Haven Fire Department, Sundance Police Department, Sundance Fire Department and the Crook County Sheriff’s Office.

“All agencies worked well together and provided information in real time for the event,” Robinson says. 

“However, it was evident that adequate warning of the tornado was not available in that the warning sirens in Moorcroft were not activated until approximately 10 minutes after the tornado had been spotted.”