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From Chad Casey on Twitter	From Emily Roehler and Jill Huserman on Twitter

Visible/IR Satellite	Visible Satellite

Radar

Radar Imagery of the Convective Line that Produced the Tornado

KPUX 00:54 UTC	KPUX 01:01 UTC	KPUX 01:08 UTC	KPUX 01:11 UTC

Storm Reports

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...SUMMARY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PUEBLO CO
933 PM MDT TUE JUL 14 2020

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0415 PM     HAIL             YODER                   38.84N 104.22W
07/14/2020  M1.75 INCH       EL PASO            CO   PUBLIC           

            RELAYED VIA MEDIA. 

0400 PM     HAIL             1 NNW RUSH              38.85N 104.09W
07/14/2020  M1.50 INCH       EL PASO            CO   PUBLIC           

            SOCIAL MEDIA POST. 

0704 PM     TORNADO          1 SW LAS ANIMAS         38.06N 103.23W
07/14/2020                   BENT               CO   PUBLIC           

            REPORTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. 

0700 PM     TORNADO          6 W LAS ANIMAS          38.08N 103.34W
07/14/2020                   BENT               CO   PUBLIC           

            TIME ESTIMATED. TOUCHED DOWN IN SOUTH FIELD. 

0700 PM     TORNADO          3 SW LAS ANIMAS         38.03N 103.26W
07/14/2020                   BENT               CO   TRAINED SPOTTER  

            TORNADO TOUCH DOWN. 

0700 PM     TORNADO          4 W LAS ANIMAS          38.06N 103.30W
07/14/2020                   BENT               CO   PUBLIC           

            LOCATION APPROXIMATED. 

0817 PM     TSTM WND GST     9 S SPRINGFIELD         37.28N 102.62W
07/14/2020  M61 MPH          BACA               CO   ASOS             

            ASOS STATION KSPD 8 S SPRINGFIELD. 

Environment

Starting in the early morning hours, the area of interest was sandwiched between an upper-level trough along the Canadian border and a ridge centered over southwest Texas, visible at 300 mb. A weak disturbance, evident at 700 mb, had developed over central Colorado, which will allow for a source of positive vorticity advection and assist in providing atmospheric lift later in the day. A stationary front was also positioned in northern Colorado stretching into northern Nebraska. Throughout the day, the trough progressed slowly eastward and began moving the stationary front to the south and west as it transitioned to a cold front.  The temperature gradient across the front was fairly weak, but the most important aspect of this front later becomes the shift in wind direction. This shift allowed for an influx of more moist air in addition to providing the necessary shear to develop more well-sustained updrafts in thunderstorms.

            By midday, the front had begun slowly meandering its way southwards, while dry conditions prevailed over the eastern plains.  Given the large disparities between temperatures and dew points, combined with impressive low to mid-level lapse rates in model soundings, the morning forecasters predicted the main threats for the day would be severe winds and large hail.  Isolated, high-based thunderstorms were expected to develop in the afternoon and slowly merge into a convective line by evening before moving east into Kansas.  As the front began to move southward, the winds changed to an easterly flow, bringing in more moist air and causing dew point temperatures to soar into the 60s, supplying much better moisture and increasing instability greatly (CAPE was forecasted to increase to around 2000 J/kg, more than enough for strong updrafts and large hail in this environment). 

             By about 6:30 pm, storm bases had lowered considerably due to the increase in near-surface moisture behind the passing cold front, which had now more or less stalled out again over the mountains.  The bulk shear was over 40 knots at this point, and many of the more isolated cells had begun to merge into a more linear structure as the convection in the region became more outflow dominant and the system moved into an area with 3000+ surface CAPE. As the storms merged, their outflow and internal updrafts resulted in small pockets of rotation near the front of the line, and several tornado warnings had been issued in Otero, Bent, Kiowa, and Crowley counties. A tornado warning for this particular part of the storm was published at 6:59 pm.  At approximately 7:01 pm, the tornado was reported to be on the ground, staying down for approximately 15-20 minutes and traveling several miles before dissipating.

SPC Upper-Air Maps:

                                                          July 14th, 2020 at 6:00AM MDT

300-hPa Analysis	500-hPa Analysis	700-hPa Analysis

850-hPa Analysis	Surface Analysis

    July 14th, 2020 at 6:00PM MDT

300-hPa Analysis	500-hPa Analysis	700-hPa Analysis

850-hPa Analysis	Surface Analysis

Forecast Soundings:
                                                          

March 29, 2019 18Z NAM, 3 hour forecast valid at 21Z, or 3 PM, near location of tornado.

SPC Mesoanalysis:

Surface Observations	Surface-based CAPE, CIN	LCL Heights

0-1 km Wind Shear	Effective Bulk Shear	Effective Storm Relative Helicity

Low-Level Lapse Rates	Mid-Level Lapse Rates	Low-Level Storm-Relative Winds