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- On This Date: America's Highest Elevation Tornado</p>
<p>Jonathan ErdmanJuly 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM</p>
<p>Tornadoes can happen anywhere and anytime when the conditions are favorable. That includes mountain ranges.</p>
<p>On July 7, 2004, 21 years ago today, several hikers in California's Sequoia National Park watched a tornado form near Rockwell Pass.</p>
<p>One backpacker, Scott Newton, had a camera with him and took photographs of the tornado developing, then in progress, which were shared with the authors of a 2014 study published in Monthly Weather Review.</p>
<p>Based on Newton's observations, the Monteverdi et al. study estimated this tornado occurred at an elevation of 12,156 feet above sea level, the highest-elevation tornado documented in the U.S. Their in-depth analysis found the parent thunderstorm may have been "at least briefly a supercell", but wasn't conclusive about that.</p>
<p>Mountain tornadoes aren't as rare as they sound. Recently, we've seen high-elevation tornadoes near Pikes Peak in June 2025, and in Wyoming's Snowy Range in June 2020.</p>
<p>America's strongest high-elevation tornado on record, rated F4, reportedly uprooted a million trees along its 24 mile path through forested land of northwest Wyoming on July 21, 1987. This Teton-Yellowstone tornado was the subject of a study by the late tornado research pioneer, Dr. Theodore Fujita.</p>
<p>Sequoia National Park tornado July 7, 2004</p>
<p>Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.</p>
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