This presentation will document a significant severe weather outbreak which occurred across southeast Colorado in a 24 hour time frame from the evening of the 28 May 2001 to the late afternoon of the 29 May. During this time frame, numerous supercell storms produced a total of 17 tornadoes across the WFO Pueblo county warning area. One of the tornadoes was an F3, two others F2s. Fortunately, no fatalities occurred with any of the tornadoes, although 20 injuries did occur when the two F2 tornadoes, along with 120 mph winds, rolled numerous mobile homes in the town of Ellicott, Colorado. A total of 14 million dollars of damage occurred due to the severe weather.

This outbreak was significant due to the number of tornadoes which occurred. Typically, WFO Pueblo (in the modernized era) documents 10 tornadoes in a year; 17 occurred in a 24 hour time period! In addition, one of the tornadoes was an F3. This is one of the strongest tornadoes ever documented in southeast Colorado (the last F3 in southeast Colorado was June 1979). This F3 was also on the ground for 30 minutes, and was well documented by a storm chase crew.

The F3 tornadic storm was also interesting in that, prior to the F3 tornado, 6 non-supercell tornadoes developed with this storm. This storm formed on a well defined boundary and moved very little during a 2 hour time frame. This storm will be discussed in more detail in a proposed oral presentation (this conference).