Colorado storms: Jaw-dropping pictures emerge of double tornado

GOBSMACKING images have surfaced of a super storm that appears to produce two tornadoes at the same time.

JAW-DROPPING images have emerged of a super storm that smashed the US state of Colorado last week.

Storm chaser and weather photographer Kelly DeLay uploaded this incredible picture to Instagram yesterday, showing “sister tornadoes” forming in Simla, on Colorado’s eastern plains, on Thursday.

The tornadoes formed under a massive supercell formation, which is a large, slow-moving area of updraught and downdraught that causes violent thunderstorms.

The tornadoes damaged at least six homes in the area, Elbert County officials said.

The footage below, taken on Friday, shows a funnel cloud near Vona, east of Denver. The high winds associated with the storms caused damage, including ripping the roof off a barn, according to local media.

The supercell spawned at least four tornadoes that destroyed homes, popped open a sinkhole that swallowed a police cruiser and dropped so much hail on a Denver neighbourhood that residents had to dig out of the ice with shovels.

Sergeant Greg Miller of the Sheridan police department was driving an four-wheel drive on a suburban street when it plunged into a 4.6m-deep sinkhole that he couldn’t see.

Sgt Miller crawled through a window and onto the vehicle’s roof, before climbing to the pavement above. He was unhurt.

“I’m glad it happened to me and to no one else,” Miller told Denver’s KMGH-TV.

Denver was smashed again on Sunday evening when parts of the city were flooded.

No serious injuries were reported.

Originally published as Colorado storms: Jaw-dropping pictures emerge of double tornado