A rare and surprisingly strong tornado touched down in the mountains east of Fruit Heights, Utah, on Friday, drawing astonishment from residents and weather experts alike. The National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office confirmed the twister first made contact with the ground near a summit along a ridgeline extending west from Francis Peak, at an elevation of about 7,500 feet (almost 2,300 metres).
The timing, according to the National Weather Service, was shortly after 1:50 p.m. MDT in Davis County. Severe thunderstorms were moving through northern Utah at the time. Video of the tornado spinning along the ridge quickly spread online, a rare visual record of a phenomenon that is difficult to document even when it happens.
Tornadoes are uncommon at very high elevations. Drier air and less favourable thunderstorm dynamics usually work against them. Brittany Whitlam, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the Salt Lake City office, told Newsweek that radar signatures showed the twister lofted debris 4,000 feet into the air. Based on radar and videos sent in by residents, the Weather Service can confirm it was a strong tornado, she said. But there will not be an official rating until a survey team is deployed to the scene to review any damage incurred.
A second tornado struck south of Vernal, Utah. That detail, too, underscored an active and dangerous day across the region.
Impressive as the Utah twister was, it falls well short of the highest-elevation tornado documented in the United States. The record belongs to a tornado that occurred on May 29, 2021, in Colorado’s West Elk Mountains at an estimated elevation of 12,600 feet. According to the National Weather Service, the short-lived landspout touched down near the summit of Purple Mountain and travelled approximately 0.65 miles along the ridge, reaching a maximum width of 20 yards. Strong surface winds in the vicinity of the West Elk Mountains near Crested Butte, Colorado, combined with local terrain features, aided in the spin-up of the short-lived landspout. Because of the tornado’s remote location, National Weather Service meteorologists were unable to conduct an onsite survey, leaving its EF rating and peak wind speed undetermined.
The second-highest-elevation tornado documented in U.S. history occurred on July 7, 2004, near Rockwell Pass in Sequoia National Park, California, at an estimated elevation of 12,156 feet. Backpacker Scott Newton was hiking west of Mount Williamson in California’s southern Sierra Nevada when he found himself with a front-row view of the rare high-elevation tornado. According to the American Meteorological Society, Newton photographed the tornado from approximately 1 kilometre away as severe-sized hail fell around him. The National Weather Service classified the tornado as an F0 on the original Fujita scale and estimated its path width at 40 yards.
Tornadoes are not uncommon in California, but documented tornadoes at such elevations are exceedingly rare. Newton’s photographs captured what researchers described at the time as the highest-elevation tornado documented in the United States.
On July 28, 2012, a tornado touched down on the eastern side of Mount Evans—now known as Mount Blue Sky—in Colorado’s Front Range. The brief tornado occurred at an estimated elevation of 11,900 feet in remote, mountainous terrain. Because it caused no reported damage, the tornado was not assigned an official rating. According to the National Weather Service, a trained weather spotter witnessed the brief tornado touch down near Lincoln Lake before it weakened into a funnel cloud and dissipated.
On Aug. 17, 1984, a tornado was documented near Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado at an elevation of 11,400 feet. According to the FOX Forecast Center, limited information is available about the tornado.
The most recent high-elevation tornado occurred on Sept. 13, 2025, after National Weather Service meteorologists identified a swath of tree damage across Colorado’s mountainous terrain. Tree damage along the tornado’s track and within its damage scar followed a brief tornado that developed along the northern slopes of Sawtooth Mountain. The Sawtooth Mountain tornado was later rated EF1, with estimated peak winds of 88 mph, a 0.85-mile path and a maximum width of 95 yards. It formed at approximately 11,300 feet, lasted about five minutes and caused no injuries or deaths.
