TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — Whenever there are reports of significant damage because of a storm, experts from the National Weather Service Salt Lake City office survey the damage to try to figure out what exactly happened.
After Thursday evening's tornado warning in Tooele County, crews spent the day figuring out whether those winds were actually a tornado or not.
Skull Valley ranch owner Diane Evans watched that storm from her own home.
"I’ve never seen anything like it out here, here in the desert,” said Evans. "All of a sudden, the blackest cloud, and the rain,” she added. “I mean it was just in sheets, you couldn't see out any windows. You could just hear all the scary noises, and there were some scary ones.”
It was a warning the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City said they haven’t issued in 15 years -- for a tornado in Tooele County on Thursday. NWS meteorologist Sam Webber was out surveying the next day,
"Lots of signs of impressive straight line winds, everything from shipping containers that weigh up to 5000 pounds being knocked off out of place, trees, about 18 to 24 inches in diameter at the base uprooted and knocked over,” said Webber. "Everything that we've ever been seeing so far is indicative of strong straight-line winds."
So far, experts said they don’t think it was a tornado.
"We're talking winds up to 90-100 miles an hour from what we've seen,” explained David Church, science and operations officer with the National Weather Service. “Either way, they are just dangerous conditions to be out in.”
Crews said they need to analyze the data and information they collected here before making a final determination about the type of wind event it was.
