Hurricane-force winds return to the Boulder area in Colorado, uprooting trees and damaging roofs

On Friday hurricane-force winds returned to the Boulder area. It was just two days after a similar wind event battered the Colorado city.

Timothy Mendez knows just how bad this week of wind has been. He's an amateur weather chaser and he says this wind event has him in awe.

 "It's pretty crazy," said Mendez. "They got bad on Wednesday. Gusts up to 85-90 miles an hour. I was just around. Turn on my radar scope, turn on my data, and I grabbed a reading of 98 miles an hour wind. 114 wind gusts."

On Friday he was at Coot Lake in northern Boulder marveling at the waves the winds were creating in the water.

"Here at the lake, I don't know what we're reading at, but we do have -- as you can see -- floods," said Mendez, looking at the splashing of the waves over the lake's banks.

In addition to waves, the wind gusts on Friday did some damage. On the University of Colorado Boulder campus, branches littered the ground along with some large trees that were uprooted.

The roofs of some houses were also damaged.   

The winds made life hectic for firefighters in Boulder County, too. Mountain View Fire Rescue hustled to get to a fire caused by a power pole that blew down.

And in the city of Boulder, Boulder Fire quickly extinguished flames near 30th Street and Euclid Avenue.

Mendez says he's been in powerful winds before, like when he chases tornadoes, but this is something he's never seen.

Planned power outages were put in place across much of Boulder on Friday morning. Most remained in place by nightfall.