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Pic I took during storms in NC last night. What is this?!


gritsnc

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We had storms move through last night. I live in Kernersville...that's between Winston-Salem and Greensboro. The clouds yesterday were awesome and like some I had never seen before. I had been outside watching the clouds off in the distance, came in and then went back out. As soon as i walked onto the porch, I saw this out of the corner of my eye and came flying in for my camera. I posted it on the news ulocal site, but nobody has said what it is. There were no tornado warnings and this didn't appear to be spinning. Does anyone know what this is called?

dscn1421s.jpg

dscn1422o.jpg

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Wow, fantastic pic......hard to say without video but it sure looks like a funnel cloud to me. Scud etc. is usually much more ragged and broken up.....that looks like a well developed funnel. Are you sure you couldn't see any rotation?

Honestly, I really didn't even look to see if I could see rotation. I was just so dang excited that I saw this. I felt like I had won the lottery! My whole body was shaking from excitement and I kept running back inside and then back out yelling at my hubby to hurry up (he was on the toilet. lol). The cloud only lasted about 2 minutes and then very quickly broke up. I can't believe I didn't get video. UGH! I just wasn't thinking straight.

There was absolutely nothing on tv about any storms with rotation. We had it on the local channel, but they never broke in.

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Wow, fantastic pic......hard to say without video but it sure looks like a funnel cloud to me. Scud etc. is usually much more ragged and broken up.....that looks like a well developed funnel. Are you sure you couldn't see any rotation?

Agreed. Not a scud, definitely looks like a funnel. I was following the storms last night, hardly any were svr warned so this is interesting...

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We had storms move through last night. I live in Kernersville...that's between Winston-Salem and Greensboro. The clouds yesterday were awesome and like some I had never seen before. I had been outside watching the clouds off in the distance, came in and then went back out. As soon as i walked onto the porch, I saw this out of the corner of my eye and came flying in for my camera. I posted it on the news ulocal site, but nobody has said what it is. There were no tornado warnings and this didn't appear to be spinning. Does anyone know what this is called?

dscn1421s.jpg

dscn1422o.jpg

Great pictures. I am not so sure those clouds are as vertical as the photo makes them appear. I doubt very much that it is a funnel cloud. There were some very interesting cloud formations yesterday afternoon that's for sure.

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Definitely looks like a rolling shelf cloud to me. If nothing else, it's not a funnel. Awesome pics in any case!

I thought that, but that must be one hell of an angle in that picture if it is. Quite the optical illusion. She said it also lasted only about 2 minutes.

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Definitely not a funnel. It's a shelf cloud viewed from the side. seen this kind of think before personally. Pretty convincing illusion at first glance. Notice how it isn't attached to any kind of lowered base or wall cloud. If this was anything tornadic in nature, it would have done some damage. Another possibility is a very narrow shaft of precipitation.

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That's not a shelf cloud. Can't really see any rising motion and Jon said that she said it only lasted about 2 minutes. She said it didn't appear to be spinning so its not a roll cloud. Looks more like a downburst taking place at the end of the long cloud. I think HKY_WX might be right. . Doesn't look like your typical shelf cloud. The 2nd pic if that was a shelf cloud, it looks like its past her house and she would be in the severe weather but its just my 2 cents though and I might not have a clue what i'm talking about.

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my guess is a wet microburst

My educated guess too, look at your base vel, srh, doubtful there was rotation observed. A very wet micro downburst, leading edge of a nasty cell, 65+ dbz. It looks like a funnel, but it is the supersaturated air rocketing towards the surface in manner sometimes seen around here. There was some 50-70mph winds within close prox to that, guaranteed, hope it was warned.

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My educated guess too, look at your base vel, srh, doubtful there was rotation observed. A very wet micro downburst, leading edge of a nasty cell, 65+ dbz. It looks like a funnel, but it is the supersaturated air rocketing towards the surface in manner sometimes seen around here. There was some 50-70mph winds within close prox to that, guaranteed, hope it was warned.

It was. I told it not to come near my house or else.

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Notice the second cloud formation from the ground up adjacent to the apparent funnel. Perhaps this was an unusual microburst and the second cloud formation is some kind of reflection after the burst hits the ground. The second cloud formation also deteriorates with time -- perhaps as the microburst runs its course.

I have to go with microburst (admittedly an odd one.)

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Thanks for the input! I really don't think it was a funnel because I think I would have noticed rotation. I've never seen a funnel in person, so I don't know it rotation is that obvious, but my guess is that it would be.

Either way, that night was amazing and people got some awesome pictures posted to the local news site. I'm hoping we get some more storms like that this year.

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