A landspout tornado that touched ground three miles northeast of Firestone and wrecked havoc for about 30 minutes has been classified as an EF1 tornado.

Although a landspout tornado is much weaker than a traditional tornado, it produced wind gusts of up to 99 mph on Monday. Landspouts also form in a single cell storm cell compared to a multiple cells inside a supercell, which can produce multiple tornadoes.

But these types of tornadoes are fairly common within the Centennial State as most of the supercell tornados only form in the eastern plains as there is traditionally a higher dew point, said Robert Koopmeiners, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service Boulder.

“Out here we get a lot of them. I’d say the lions share are weak landspout tornadoes,” said Koopmeiners.

Due to the lack of the supercell, tracking these types of tornadoes can be difficult and on Monday, NWS Boulder officials were getting reports of a tornado on the ground prior to it appearing on the radar.

“It didn’t even show up on radar for at least the first 10 minutes, and that’s any circulation,” said Treste Huse, a hydrologist with the NWS Boulder.

Initially the tornado was designated as an EF0, which means speeds did not exceed 85 mph, NWS officials have classified it as an EF1 as it reached over 85 mph, but did not exceed 99 mph, said Huse.

Monday’s Tornado that spanned from northeast of Firestone to southwest of Platteville damaged seven properties for an estimated total of over half a million dollars, according to a release from Weld County Tuesday evening.

Weld County damage assessors said two homes were destroyed — meaning more than 50% of the home sustained damage  — for an estimated cost of $429,176. Three other homes were endured an estimated of $101,336 worth of damages.

Two businesses also suffered damages as a feedlot loss two buildings — one from a fire caused by a downed power line and the other from the tornado — while the dairy had damage to the roof and some out buildings. There is no total estimated cost to these properties yet.

Members from the NWS were on-scene of the six miles the tornado impacted Tuesday to gather information and investigate its circumstances. Most of the on-scene work was finished on Tuesday, but they will continue to investigate by using the data collected and produced a report, Huse said.