Strasburg to Wiggins, CO: 85 mph Winds Hit the I-70 Corridor — July 29, 2026

On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 29, 2026, thunderstorms developed along the Front Range and pushed east onto the plains, producing a concentrated swath of damaging straight-line wind along the I-70 corridor east of Denver. The National Weather Service in Boulder logged an 85 mph (74 kt) gust near Wiggins in Morgan County — the strongest of the event — with an 84 mph (73 kt) gust north of Strasburg, 77 mph (67 kt) gusts at both Strasburg and Bennett in Adams County, and a 70 mph (61 kt) gust near Strasburg. Every one of those readings is well past the 58 mph threshold the NWS uses to define a severe storm, and gusts in the 80s are the kind of wind that strips shingles, peels back ridge caps, and drops limbs onto roofs.

A separate storm produced the day's largest hail well to the south. Golf-ball hail (1.75") was reported around 6 PM in Fremont County near Rockvale, in the hills south of Cañon City. Stones that size are well past the roughly one-inch mark where roof damage begins — they bruise the shingle mat, knock the protective granules loose, dent gutters and flashing, and crack or hole vinyl siding on the storm-facing walls.

July 29 was the second day in a row this corridor took a beating. On July 28, the same area saw a 81 mph gust at Bennett, 77 mph at Strasburg, and 76 mph at Watkins, so a lot of roofs between Aurora and Byers absorbed back-to-back damaging wind. Colorado leads the nation in hail and wind claims, and back-to-back events are especially hard on a roof: the first day's wind breaks the adhesive seal holding shingle tabs down, and the second day works on a surface that's already compromised. In Colorado you typically have about a year from the date of the storm to file a claim, so it pays to have a roof looked at sooner rather than later.