The dinosaur fossil recently found in Thornton is in fact this creature – a torosaurus, not a triceratops as originally thought. (By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work) CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Thornton’s now famous dinosaur bones that were discovered at a construction site have been identified as a different prehistoric creature than originally thought.
Scientists with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science told CBS4 that they are actually remnants of a torosaurus, not a triceratops.
Dr. Joe Sertich, Curator of Dinosaurs at the museum, told the news station that the key in figuring out what it was came in the frill.
Sertich said, “I came in here and the preparators had cleaned off this part of the shield, the frill behind the head and I don’t think the preparators realized what this part was. This was a complete window opening in the frill.”
Sertich noted that the fact it is a torosaurus is in some ways even more exciting due to the rarity of that creature. This is in fact the only example of the torosaurus found in North America.
“This adds a really important single individual to a really rare dinosaur,” Sertich explained. “This is probably the most complete skull of a torosaurus.”
On June 3, 1981, Thornton was the site of the most destructive tornado in the history of the Denver metro area. The City of Thornton is now evaluating options to warn residents of severe weather threats. (City of Thornton archives)
Visitors to ThorntonWeather.com have often asked us if the city was taking any steps to protect its citizens and warn them about severe weather. The city – and Adams County – are lacking any type of alert system. Following last year’s ‘Summer of Storms,’ we were told the city would look into it.
Current options for citizens range from the Emergency Alert System used by television and radio broadcasters, free and pay Internet services as well as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (weather radio). As we have discussed previously, these systems have their limitations.
At this week’s city council update session, the Thornton City Council heard a presentation from city staff on the alternatives available. Utilizing Reverse 911 and contracting with a third party provider were two of the items discussed.
Read the presentation city staff gave to the Thornton City Council below
In trying to identify ways to keep citizens aware of deteriorating weather conditions, city staff told council, “Technology is changing so quickly that supporting a single system would not be efficient.”
The Denver area is at the western edge of Tornado Alley and as we have seen historically and in recent days, the danger is real. Click image for larger view. Image courtesy NOAA.
Rather than implement their own system, staff recommended the city rely upon the federal government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) forthcoming Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).
Slated for widespread deployment in 2010, IPAWS will take the old Emergency Alert System and move it into the modern age by leveraging new communication technologies such as email and cellular phones.
Mayor Erik Hansen told ThorntonWeather.com, “The City of Thornton recognizes the dangers of severe weather and we are actively working to identify solutions to protect its citizens.”
While the city waits for IPAWS, staff said they recommend the “development of a Weather Awareness Public Education Program that would be implemented in the spring of each year.” They further would work to encourage residents to purchase weather radios.
ThorntonWeather.com’s Take
We are pleased that the city is finally taking some steps in the right direction – albeit 29 years late.
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is essential to protecting you and your family.
The implementation of a severe weather education program is also a step in the right direction, assuming it takes the form of something more substantial than the simple brochure the city developed this year.
Each spring the National Weather Service (NWS) offers storm spotter training seminars. These would likely be overkill for average citizens however we think it would be ideal for the City of Thornton to partner with the Denver / Boulder NWS office to offer education sessions for citizens. These could be taped and then shown on Channel 8 and on the city’s website.
We do have our reservations about waiting for and relying on the forthcoming IPAWS system when commercial systems are available, proven and ready now for the city to implement. Big government projects rarely are completed on time and often do not perform as expected. Hopes are high for IPAWS but we are cautious on giving it any sort of endorsement.
Granted, severe weather on par with the 1981 tornado is rare however last year’s severe weather and the Windsor tornado of two years ago show the danger is present. If a warning system saves one life, the cost incurred is well worth it and we hope the city continues to stay on top of this issue – we will certainly be watching.
The Thornton Community Chorus will join the Thornton Community Band as one more cultural offering in the city.
Supported by the Thornton Arts, Sciences and Humanities Council (TASHCO), Thornton will soon be playing host to its own choir group – the Thornton Community Chorus. The chorus joins the relatively new Thornton Community Band and form a duo of extraordinary cultural offerings for area residents.
According to the Thornton Community Chorus’ website, they will be working to establish a performing chorus of adults in the north metro area. Currently in the formation stage is looking for organizers, musicians and supporters. Be sure to check out their website for more information at www.thorntoncommunitychorus.org.
We would be remiss to not also mention the Thornton Community Band. The band formed a bit over a year ago and has been a tremendous hit. If you have not heard them perform, you are truly missing out on hearing some extraordinary musicians. Their next concert is March 4th so please visit their website to learn more at www.thorntonband.webs.com.
While obviously not a weather-related story, we feel that both of these offerings bring new opportunities to not only the performers but citizens as well. We encourage everyone to take advantage and enjoy some music!
This funnel cloud was seen on Tuesday, June 9, from the Thornton Civic Center (looking north). Image courtesy Lisa Wilson, the City of Thornton.
MetroNorth Newspapers in the Northglenn-Thornton Sentinel covered the recent bout of severe weather in the most recent edition of Thornton’s hometown newspaper. In part, the article says:
As a former producer for 9News, Todd Barnes has chased a few tornadoes in his time. On Sunday, however, the storm found him.
Barnes, communications manager for the City of Thornton, was shopping at Costco in the Larkridge development near 162nd Avenue and Interstate 25 when he witnessed the funnel cloud form. The tornado touched down at 1:17 p.m. one mile north of Broomfield, near the northwestern edge of Thornton.
“There’s nothing like watching a tornado touch down,” Barnes said Monday. “It’s incredible.”
Another funnel cloud was spotted over the city at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. It appeared only briefly, high in the sky at a nearly 90-degree angle, before disappearing, according to witnesses. A tornado did touch down outside Firestone shortly after 5 p.m., but no serious damage was reported.
Do you subscribe to the Sentinel? Why not? There is no other source of truly local news available to Thornton and Northglenn residents and MetroNorth News and the Sentinel do an outstanding job of providing the depth of news and information area residents really need. If you haven’t read the Sentinel, pick up a copy and check it out. They do have a website but it isn’t particularly noteworthy and doesn’t have the same information you get in the print version. Subscriptions for the paper are very inexpensive and I would highly recommend it to everyone who lives in the area. Check it out and support Thornton’s hometown newspaper!
On June 3, 1981 a tornado struck Thornton in what is the worst twister to have struck the Denver metro area. Despite this, Thornton does not have any sort of emergency alert system to warn citizens of tornadoes or other civil disasters. Image courtesy the City of Thornton archives.
As we have discussed before, the City of Thornton is lacking any type of system to alert citizens of severe weather like we have seen recently. In the last week, parts of Thornton have been under Tornado Warnings as funnel clouds circled in the sky and citizens are understandably concerned.
We at ThorntonWeather.com continually remind people that the Denver metro area is at the far western edge of Tornado Alley and funnel clouds, tornadoes, hail and other types of severe weather are not unusual at all. It was 28 years ago last Wednesday in fact that the costliest tornado to ever hit the Denver metro area struck Thornton. Accounts vary but 53 people were injured, at least 25 homes were destroyed and hundreds more damaged.
The danger is real – tornadoes can and do strike in the Thornton area. In some ways it is surprising that the city did not implement some sort of system in the wake of the tornado in 1981. Many municipalities in the metro area do have warning sirens including Denver, Aurora, Englewood, Commerce City and Brighton.
Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen has told ThorntonWeather.com that the city will look at ways to inform citizens when severe weather is imminent. This may take the form of utilizing the reverse 911 system or as we suggested to him, a possible new text alert system that would deliver alerts to citizen’s mobile phones. It is our firm belief that some sort of system to be used not only for severe weather but for other civil disasters is a wise and prudent investment for the city to take.
The Denver area is at the western edge of Tornado Alley and as we have seen historically and in recent days, the danger is real. Click image for larger view. Image courtesy NOAA.
This week the city posted some tornado safety tips on its website that are worth reviewing. You may also wish to review our Severe Weather 101 series which provides more in depth information on the entire array of spring and summer severe weather (links below).
We will continue our conversations with the city about how they can improve communication with Thornton residents about severe weather and keep you updated as appropriate. If you are so inclined, contact your city council representatives and let them know you want to see Thornton implement an emergency alert system.
The tornado that struck Aurora, Colorado has been rated an EF1 with 100 mph winds by the National Weather Service. Image courtesy Sean Strachan. Follow the link below to go to Examiner.com for more images.
The tornado that touched down in the Denver suburb of Aurora and caused damage to a local mall and apartment complex has been rated an EF1 by the National Weather Service. After two days of evaluations, the service said that the twister most likely had winds of 100 mph, placing it in the middle of that rating.
The four other twisters that struck the area will be rated later this week. Because they were short lived and struck in open areas, they mostly likely will be rated as EF0 twisters with winds from 65 mph to 85 mph.
The other tornadoes were reported in the area of 144th and I-25, one was reported five miles south of Bennett, one five miles south of Deer Trail and one three miles north of Byers.
A funnel cloud near Thornton on Sunday, June 7, 2009. Image courtesy John Wagner, Warrior Legacy Foundation. View our slideshow below for more images.
For a brief period of time this afternoon, Thornton and western Adams County were under a Tornado Warning as a funnel cloud was spotted passing. Thankfully the storm quickly weakened and the threat diminished. The image at the right is courtesy John Wagner of the Warrior Legacy Foundation. This was from approximately 136th & Washington looking northwest.
View images from ThorntonWeather.com visitors in our slideshow below. Also check out two videos of the twister below!
Please stay aware of the latest severe weather in Thornton. As of this writing a Severe Thunderstorm Warning remains in effect and conditions could rapidly deteriorate again.
Where's Denver? This webcam view from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows Denver obscured in the snowfall at 1:00pm Thursday.
If you can, get out of work early today as the roads are sure to be a mess during rush hour. Snow has been falling across the Front Range all day and snow totals for the metro area are in the 2 to 4 inch range. Probably just as notable is the bitter cold we are seeing – at 1:00pm DIA was showing 17 degrees and a wind chill of only 2 degrees. Denver’s high temperature today will most likely be 22 degrees but that was reached at 1:00am! The wind will continue to keep the wind chills down around zero so bundle up if you head out.
The snow will continue through 11:00pm although accumulations will be pretty light. The north, west and southern suburbs could see up to 6 inches of snow while the central metro area will end up with around 2 to 4 inches. Areas of Larimer and Weld Counties including Fort Collins and Greeley will see between 5 to 10 inches of snow.
A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for the I-25 corridor north of Longmont as well as most of the central and northern mountains areas. The extreme eastern portions of the state are under an advisory as well. In the mountains, eastbound I-70 has chain restrictions in place at the Eisenhower Tunnel, Loveland Pass and at Vail.
Tonight we will dip into the single digits but Friday brings us back into the 40’s and the weekend looks great.
The scene at ThorntonWeather.com at 5:50am today. Click the image for a current weather webcam view.
The snow arrived overnight and as of 5:00am ThorntonWeather.com had measured 1.3” and it was still coming down pretty good. Due to the extreme cold – 17 degrees and a windchill of 5 degrees as of this writing – the roads are quite slick. This morning we found residential streets to be the worst of course but main arterials like 120th Ave were not in too good of shape either. Please allow plenty of time to get the kids to school and yourselves to work, allow plenty of distance between you and other cars and just take your time.
A surge of cold air from the north is expected to intensify the snowfall in the coming hours and a bit of upslope will keep the flakes falling for most of the day. Accumulations though won’t be all that great – look for 2 to 4 inches overall. Snow will taper off this evening from the north to the south and completely end in the metro area around midnight.
Friday and this weekend are shaping up great but that could be short lived. We are watching a cold front coming from Montana that could bring more cold and snow toward the first part of next week.
Weather, natural disasters & climate news and information.
![The dinosaur fossil recently found in Thornton is in fact this creature - a torosaurus, not a triceratops as originally thought. (By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work) CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Torosaurus_BW.jpg)
