SAN DIEGO (CBS8) - Over the weekend, a massive twister blew through eastern Colorado and it was all captured in an incredible video.
Storm chasers are known to get dangerously close and tornado-tracker Reed Timmer did just that when he pulled right up to a violent tornado as it continued to rotate for several minutes.
The storm touched down in Wray, Colorado, a small town residing near the Kansas and Nebraska state borders with a population of about 2,000 people. Timmer's video shows him closely following the funnel as it picks up everything else in its path.
Ivory Small, the National Weather Service San Diego science and operations officer, says he was stunned by the video's clarity.
"From a scientist’s point of view, there are a lot of features in the storm as far as the cloud and the formation of the cloud with all the winds," Small said.
Like something out of movie, the massive tornado sweeps in a steady formation as it continues to spin and smaller tornadoes begin to form.
Small says there's great visibility since there's not nearly as much moisture for the tornado in that part of Colorado, unlike some of the recent tornadoes seen in Texas and Oklahoma.
"It appeared to take it's time, moving through across that road which is a little bit unusual, a lot of times you'll get a fairly strong tornado like an F2, it zips right on by, but this one seemed to kind of hang around and just spin over the road," Small said.
The National Weather Service classified the Colorado tornado an EF2, estimating its speed at about 125 miles per hour. There were a number of injuries reported and there was widespread damage.