STERLING, Colo — A home was destroyed by a tornado and a commercial building under renovation was damaged by heavy rains in northeastern Colorado Wednesday afternoon.
Logan County emergency manager Jerry Casebolt said a home near Willard was destroyed by a tornado that hit around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. The home was in the 6000 block of County Road 20.5, emergency managers said.
Casebolt said the home's resident was in the basement and heard the tornado hit. He is fine, but his house is uninhabitable, Casebolt said.
A healthcare building that's undergoing renovations collapsed under heavy rain in Sterling, Casebolt said. No one was in the building at the time.
"This heavy rain event with confirmed tornados sat over Logan County for about four hours, dumping from four to six inches of rain in less than an hour," emergency managers said in a news release. "Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings were issued for Logan County and the City of Sterling throughout the evening. The storm started near the North Sterling State Park with a couple funnel clouds and large hail. The storm cell moved west and spawned more tornados, before heading back to the east into the City of Sterling resulting in a deluge of rain in a very short amount of time."
Casebolt said no injuries were reported from the storms in Logan County, but there were reports of property damage like flooded basements and downed trees.
The storms were part of a severe weather outbreak that hit a large portion of Colorado Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Near Akron, in Washington County, twin tornadoes touched down Wednesday afternoon. There were no initial reports of damage from the tornadoes, which appeared to be over open country a few miles south and west of Akron.
Unusually high amounts of moisture were the primary reason for Wednesday's severe weather. Dewpoints, a common measure of the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, were in some cases at their highest levels in several years across northeastern Colorado.
More severe weather could impact eastern Colorado on Thursday, and there'll still be a chance for severe storms on Friday before what looks to be a calmer weekend and start to next week.
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