Tornado kills 1, rips apart buildings north of Denver

(CNN) - At least one massive tornado swept across northern Colorado's Front Range on Thursday, killing at least one person, destroying several buildings and dumping golf-ball-size hail, a sheriff's deputy said.

Shane Scofield, a Weld County sheriff's deputy, said numerous buildings in the town of Windsor were destroyed by the storm.  "Some are completely demolished and unrecognizable - just masses of timber," he told CNN.

Windsor is about 80 miles (125 km) north of Denver. Weld County fire spokeswoman Brenda Stroman said the storm hit "several other areas" of the county as well.

To the west, in Fort Collins, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office had several reports of damage, including one home destroyed and another in which residents were trapped by a fallen tree, sheriff's spokesman Don Nadow said. And witnesses reported funnel clouds over parts of Loveland, about 13 miles south of Fort Collins, he said. There were no immediate reports of injuries in Larimer County, he said.