A Rare Tornado Touched Down 7,500 Feet Up in the Utah Mountains

A tornado touched down high in the mountains that dot the landscape last week, proving that this force of nature can happen nearly anywhere. Read on for the details of this rare high-elevation twister.

Tornado Hits Elevation of 7,500 Feet

Mother Nature is inherently unpredictable. This was demonstrated when a tornado touched down in the mountainous terrain about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City on Friday.

The twister was spotted on Francis Peak, about two miles east of Fruit Heights. With an elevation of 7,500 feet, Francis Peak is part of the Wasatch Range region of the northern Rocky Mountains. The tornado carved a path through the dense forest that distinguishes this part of the Beehive State.

Friday's tornado was part of a storm system that roared through this part of Utah. Hailstones as large as 1.5 inches in diameter were reported in areas north and south of Salt Lake City.

This tornado will likely go down as an EFU on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EFS), meaning that its true strength is unknown. The EFS leans on a variety of metrics that are difficult to measure when the tornado happens in such a remote location.

While there were no buildings in its path, an eyewitness to the storm was unable to return home due to the trees that had been uprooted and strewn across the road. A meteorologist visited the site of impact and confirmed widespread damage to the trees in the area, signaling that this was a strong event.

Rarity of Tornadoes in the Mountains

Most people associate tornadic activity with the Plains states and other areas of low elevation, making this event even more unlikely. Although tornadoes are rare in the mountains, that does not mean that they are unheard of in the higher terrain. Friday's event was one of about a dozen tornadoes that have been reported in Davis County, Utah, since 1950. Only two of these have occurred since 2000.

An EF1 twister was confirmed in Divide, Colorado, in June of 2025. This tornado reportedly touched down at a towering elevation of 9,160 feet.

The record for the highest-elevation tornado ever confirmed in the state of Colorado belongs to Purple Mountain, located at an elevation of 12,600 feet. This tornado struck the area well above the timberline on May 29, 2021. This is also one of the few tornadoes to have spun up with snow in its vortex. The snow is not particularly surprising, as a powerful storm event in May this high in the mountains is likely to feature snow rather than rain.

Prior to the Purple Mountain tornado, the record belonged to a twister that hit Rockwell Pass in California on July 7, 2004. This pass is located within the boundaries of Sequoia National Park at a soaring elevation of 12,156 feet.

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