Tornadoes can happen anywhere and anytime when the conditions are favorable. That includes mountain ranges.
On July 7, 2004, 21 years ago today, several hikers in California’s Sequoia National Park watched a tornado form near Rockwell Pass.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sequoia National Park tornado July 7, 2004
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.