Everyone here in Colorado knows that tornadoes only hit the plains in our state, and never in the high mountains. Mountain tornadoes are so rare as to be almost mythical--maybe once every 10 or 20 years.

NOT!

These are not my photos, they are from a cool new website here in Colorado, http://www.fishexplorer.com, dedicated to lake fishing of all types (not just flyfishing). I'm a volunteer 'lake skipper' for these folks, keeping the lake conditions updated for my lake.

I've crosslinked to one of the pictures, go to the thread on Fishexplorer for the rest. This high altitude mountain waterspout occurred a week and half ago, on August 23, on ElevenMile Reservoir in South Park.

Some things to think about -- the folks in the motorized pontoon boat in the photo, and the photographer in the boat from which the photo was taken, are lucky to be alive.

If someone had been in a float tube or personal pontoon boat at the wrong spot, they would have been DEAD, with no way to move the boat fast enough to get out of the way. Anyone in a hand-propelled craft (very common on this lake, it's a trophy flyfishing destination) should have been off of this lake and having lunch on shore at LEAST an hour before this event happened--probably even earlier, because of lightning danger.

When you are in a small boat on a lake, do NOT ever make assumptions like "it'll blow over soon" or "the thunderstorm is too far away to affect us" or even "I haven't heard any thunder yet, we'll be fine."

Here's the whole thread with more pics, from a couple different folks:
http://www.fishexplorer.com/fx/fxrfo...=det&pid=20133

DANBOB