Laramie Tornado Wows Just About Everybody

Tornado near Laramie,
Wyoming Wednesday.

Every year, there's at least one iconic tornado somewhere in the United States that is just amazing to watch and terribly beautiful.

To be clear the terribly beautiful ones are the twisters that don't hurt or kill anybody.

So it was near Laramie, Wyoming on Wednesday when long lived tornado touched down beneath a supercell thunderstorm.

It hit near a populated area, and many storm chasers had already congregated near the supercell, so you know this was going to be well photographed and lots of people would take videos.  Even a Wyoming Department of Transportation highway webcam caught a good image of the tornado.

Though it hit near a populated area, the tornado did not actually go through neighborhoods. It stayed mostly in open country. That's a great thing, since the twister was rated an EF-3.

A National Weather Service survey and analysis of the tornado indicated it had estimated winds were 150 mph, was 600 yards wide and tracked for 12 miles.  As noted, it caused little damage.

A satellite tornado briefly formed that had maximum winds of 120 mph. That one wasn't on the ground long at all, but it went through a subdivision, causing damage to several houses.

While weak tornadoes are fairly common in Wyoming, strong ones are rare. Until this year, Wyoming had not experienced a tornado rated  at EF-3 (winds of 136 to 165 mph) since 1987.  In the opening days of June this year, there have been two such tornadoes in Wyoming. The Laramie tornado and one near Gillette on June 1.

Here's one video of the twister:



And here's another series of views from Laramie Live: