Massive Colorado thunderstorm appears to spawn rare 'twin' tornadoes

© Kelly Delay
A supercell thunderstorm produces two tornadoes at the same time near Simla, Colorado on June 4, 2015

    

Storm chaser and professional photographer Kelly Delay took an epic picture of a particularly productive supercell thunderstorm near Simla, Colorado, on June 4.

The storm produced at least four tornadoes, according to reports and footage from Delay and other chasers who also followed the storm. At least one of these tornadoes destroyed a handful of homes.

Delay captured the image, which shows two tornadoes at the same time, or possibly one tornado on the right and a landspout funnel on the left.

Landspouts are tornadoes that are not spawned by the larger area of rotation in a supercell thunderstorm, which is known as the mesocyclone. These tornadoes generally form underneath thunderstorms, even non-severe ones, and are often thought of as the landform of waterspouts because they are weak tornadoes.

It is possible that this particular thunderstorm, though, produced two tornadoes at the same time. Twin tornadoes were observed in one Nebraska storm last year, and are not regarded as freak events, but rather just relatively rare occurrences.

The same storm also produced this incredibly photogenic tornado, as it kicked up dust from the Colorado plains:

While the 2015 tornado season has been less active than average overall, this past week has brought several rounds of severe weather to a part of "Tornado Alley" that is not the first place you would think to look for twisters: eastern Colorado, including areas just to the east of Denver, western Kansas and much of Wyoming.