It was a bumpy night for certain areas across the eastern plains of Colorado, as a round of severe weather hit the region Monday evening. In fact, the storms went well into the night as there were many watches and warnings in the area.
As the clouds were building a tornado watch was issued for all of NE Colorado until 11 pm MDT, as those watches became warnings in many spots, especially along HWY 34. A tornado warning was issued for Washington County just after 7:30pm, which started a long line of alerts. Tornado & severe thunderstorm warnings continued for a few hours as Morgan, Adams, Washington and Yuma Counties all had major storms, with as many as 6 separate systems rolling through at once. Heavy rains were reported, followed by damaging hail, with reports of ping-pong to baseball sized hail along, and south of HWY 34.
The storms tracked east at about 20-25 MPH, as high winds were producing gusts anywhere from 70-90MPH in spots. About 1-3 inches of rain fell in Washington County as a Flash Flood warning was issued until about midnight for places like Otis and Platner. Severe weather warnings continued along 34 well into the 10pm time slot, as Yuma County and the City of Yuma was hit pretty hard by hail, with 6-12 inches of it reported in many areas, and major damage done to vehicles throughout town, with damage to structures too.
The CobbleStone Inn suffered broken siding all along its façade, as many other buildings in town had the same issues. The systems tracked east and south as the night progressed with everything pushing out of the state late into the night. Damage across Yuma County was extensive enough, as all Yuma Schools and District offices will be closed for Tuesday (5-21), and all activities cancelled. Sterling, Merino, Julesburg and Holyoke had heavy rains and lots of lightning well into the evening hours as well, as a few storms tracked along I-76 also.