Utah Hit Be Tornado, Severe Storms

Damage from Thursday's tornado in Washington Terrace, Utah.
Photo by Patrick Benadict  

That was quite a cold front that went through Utah Thursday, spinning off at least one tornado and causing other damage.

In Washington Terrace, Utah, the tornado destroyed one home, damaged at least 30 others and caused several relatively minor injuries, says the Salt Lake Tribune.

A second, smaller tornado hit the town of Panguitch, Utah, the second time in less than a month that town had a twister, says the Salt Lake Tribune.

Utah isn't exactly the tornado capital of the world, but they do occasionally get them. (Almost every place in the United States could get a twister). A tornado famously tore through downtown Salt Lake City in 1999.

Utah averages about two tornadoes per year, most of them weak, says the Deseret News. On average a tornado as strong as an EF2, with winds of 111 to 135 mph, occurs only once in seven years. Thursday's tornado in Washington Terrace, Utah appears to have caused at least EF2-scale damage.

Thursday's storms in Utah also produced strong, damaging winds, as you'll see in one of the videos at the bottom of this post.

The severe weather is gone from Utah today, but in the chilly air behind the cold front, there's a winter weather advisory in the Wasatch Mountains. Six to 12 inches of snow is likely at elevations higher than 7,000 feet, says the National Weather Service

Winter is coning

Here's a video of yesterday's tornado in Utah:




And here's a video of a LOT of tree damage in Utah from the storm: