Colorado Hit By Tornadoes, Floods, Hail

A tornado looms over Simia, Colorado on
Thursday. Photo by John Hallen.  

Another day, another round of severe storms.

It's been a slow drip, drip of severe storms and tornadoes this spring and early summer.

So far, there have not really been any mega huge tornado outbreaks, but the pace of tornadoes, while slower than normal, has picked up above the levels of the previous two years.

Colorado was targeted most the past couple of days.

The Denver Post said about 25 homes were damaged or destroyed by a tornado along the border of Boulder and Larimer counties.

Hail washed down hills and piled up a few feet deep in Denver streets. People were seen last night digging their cars out with snow shovels, as if there had been a nasty blizzard.

Hail piled deep in Denver streets, as viewed
from a news helicopter.  

Flooding is a spreading problem, too. We'll get into that after the video that's coming next, which I'll set up now.

I'm a little reluctant to show this video, because you can argue it glorifies tornado chasers getting too close to tornadoes.

In this case, chaser Verne Carlson tried to drive away from a tornado that was drawing too close in Simia, Colorado.

The GPS he was using indicated the road kept going, but it was a dead end, so he could go no further as the tornado chased the chaser.

It ran over him, badly damaging his truck, but luckily Carlson suffered no serious injuries.

Watch:



As I noted, tornadoes aren't the only problem going on. Flooding continues to be a problem in a lot of areas. Now it's spreading out of Texas and Oklahoma, two states that are actually drier this week.

The Denver Post said the tornadic storms dumped eight inches of rain on Lyon, Colorado, sending water coursing through living rooms and blocking roads.

Kansas has had a number of flash warnings, and more flooding is expected there.

Also, a terrible flood hit the city of Lusk, Wyoming, as you can see in this video of scary flood damage.