National Weather Service surveys damage from Highlands Ranch tornado

Greg Heavener spent his Friday afternoon in Highlands Ranch checking out the damage from Thursday's tornado.

He is a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder, and coming out to see the aftermath in person is a must.

"Ensuring that what we have estimated as far a wind speeds goes is still accurate and see if there is any other kind of significant damage," he said.

Especially since Wednesday's storm was unique for our state.

"It's called a super cellular tornado and that's a really fancy term. Basically, the storm we are watching that formed yesterday had a lot of rotation in it," said Heavener. "A majority of tornadoes in Colorado though don't have that kind of spin."

The evidence Greg can see on the ground confirms it.

"The debris even from a block away to here is more diffuse. It's more scattered out. It's laying in different directions," said Heavener.

National Weather Service meteorologists have already seen plenty of pictures and videos of the tornado online, but Greg says nothing beats seeing the evidence firsthand.

"It really helps to get the better visualization. I can determine a little bit easier looking at the damage itself even the path of the damage too will give me an idea of how wide the tornado was, how long it tracked across an area, how long it was on the ground for instance as well too, and then even to make sure seeing what we are rating it is appropriate," said Heavener.

The National Weather Service has rated the tornado an EF1.

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