Author photo

By Karla Pomeroy
Editor 

Tornadoes and hail: No reported damage in Big Horn Basin

 

June 14, 2017



WORLAND — Severe storms spawned tornadoes around Wyoming Monday and large hail dropped in parts of eastern Wyoming. Only one person was reported to be injured.

Tornadoes were reported Monday afternoon in eastern Wyoming in Laramie, Platte, Goshen and Natrona counties.

In Goshen County, where a tornado damaged a house and overturned tractors, there was one report of a person being injured.


Five tornadoes were reported in Laramie County, including one near Carpenter that damaged four or five homes, downed power lines and damaged a gas line. There were no reports of injuries.

There were numerous reports of golf ball- and baseball-sized hail that damaged vehicles and other property.

National Weather Service forecaster Ralph Estell said outside of eastern Wyoming, they also received a report of a tornado in Johnson County near Kaycee and one in Big Horn County (four miles west of Burlington, Washakie County (25 miles west of Worland) and one in Park County (10 miles southeast of Cody described near Oregon Basin with multiple touchdowns, but Estell said the tornado that touched down around Burlington-Otto. He said the only tornado to have created any reported damage from those two was the one in Kaycee.


While severe weather this time of year is not unusual, to have this many reports all in one day was a big unusual, Estell said.

“We had a nice cold front come through and had the right combination of moisture ahead of it and cold air behind it, lifting up the warm, moist air above it. Basically, that all met pretty much through central and northern Wyoming in our area,” Estell, based in the Riverton office, said. The storm also got down into southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado.

According to the NWS, there was nickle to ping-pong-sized hail in Manderson (about 1.5 inches in diameter), one-inch sized hail east of Ten Sleep and just under one-inch sized hail in Park County.

City of Worland Public Works Superintendent Brian Burky said the city received several reports Tuesday morning of down tree limbs and the parks crews were busy trying to keep up.

The NWS data shows gusts up to 54 mph at the weather station at Worland Municipal Airport.

Meantime, a snow advisory was posted Monday night and Tuesday morning for areas of western Wyoming, including Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park. Some mountains were forecast to get up to 14 inches.

For the Big Horn Basin the rest of the week, after another thunderstorm Tuesday, Estell said the rest of the week “looks benign” with temperatures increasing gradually getting back to the 80s.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

 
 

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024