TORRINGTON – Goshen County saw its first glimpse of severe spring weather last Thursday afternoon with scattered storms first producing land spouts, while rotating soon thereafter into a tornado.

The National Weather Service in Cheyenne began seeing storms develop at roughly 2:45 p.m. on April 25 along the Wyoming-Nebraska state line, which later developed into a 3:11 p.m. tornado warning for the area.

Cheyenne meteorologist, Matthew Brothers, spoke with the Telegram regarding reports and results of the storms.

“We had a storm initially go off, and then around 3:05 p.m. we started hearing reports of possible land spouts,” Brothers stated. “It was really a stretching of rotation into the atmosphere from that boundary. We then started getting reports as it merged into a conservative tornado, with circulation developing over the Henry and Lyman area.”

Brothers added further reports of storms producing both quarter and golf ball-sized hail, but with no current reports of severe damages or injuries.

“This storm was overall pretty stationary,” Brothers continued. “It was short-lived, but the storm still produced a few funnel clouds in the Henry and Morrill area. Those were the only tornadoes reported to us.” 

The Cheyenne meteorologist was remindful to county locals the importance of reporting any severe or potentially dangerous weather they may see.

Additionally, Brothers added both in person and online classes in weather spotting will be taking place at various times throughout the month of May.

“All eyes on the ground can be extremely helpful in reporting what you see,” Brothers added. “We did receive a lot of calls yesterday of additional reports which was extremely helpful. As far as the rotation of the tornado which was the second event, we were able to detect rotations with the storm. It was weaker than our initial thresholds, but definitely hearing those reports helped us get warnings out to protect lives.”

“As far as land spouts those are extremely difficult for us to see on our radar, and a majority of the time we can’t see those. Any spotter tips are extremely helpful, and if anyone is interested we have a few spotter training classes coming up this spring with virtual ones as well. They can attend those and help get trained up on safely spotting hazardous weather.”

Brothers noted classes will take place on May 1 in Laramie, where an advanced session will take place at 6 p.m. on May 7 at the Laramie County Emergency Management Training Room at the Archer Facility in Cheyenne.

Virtual classes will take place additionally on May 2 and 9 at 6 p.m. Those who are interested may register at www.weather.gov or may call the National Weather service at 307-772-2468.