UPDATE: Several of you wrote in with some interesting tidbits. Thanks for your feedback. Among them: Atlanta is quite hilly, but there are a lot of trees to block the view. Heavy rain that preceded the storm may have caused would-be photographers to take cover too soon, while heavy winds shut down the TV tower cams. Shane took his picture from an unusually high highrise in the Northwest part of town, but generally the high rises block each other's view.Over at Snopes.com (a great site killing myths daily) there were some questions about the authenticity (and the lighting) of that famous "Atlanta Tornado" picture that is making the email rounds, and I have received some questions from blog readers as well. I just posted this diatribe over on the Snopes Message Board "Atlanta Tornado" Topic, but it needs to be approved by a moderator (yes, the tables are turned now). Here's what I said:

Hi folks, AccuWeather.com Community Director and Meteorologist Jesse Ferrell here. I write a blog for AccuWeather.com and I have challenged the authenticity of weather photos (or claims about time & place) before. I am also an amateur weather photographer.Many of you have asked about the lighting/lightning in the photo and whether it shows a tornado, based on comments from a meteorologist interviewed by a local TV station.I have tried unsuccessfully to get in contact with the photographer, Shane Durrance. He took at least one additional shot which was shown on a certain cable network that I am unable to mention by name, but their initials are "WC"

There is a larger version of the photo available as a link from (I can't show the photo here for copyright reasons).

2-HOUR LIGHTNING STRIKES THAT NIGHTLooking at the photo, don't be offput by the large gray mass on the right, the tornado is the large tubular object on the left next to the Bank of America building. From just this photo I would be about 80% sure of that, though looking at additional photos and knowing the time it was taken would help.The lighting in the photo looks genuine and is a combination of ambient city lights, their reflecting off the clouds, and lightning; the photographer has left the shutter open for some amount of time (seconds to minutes) to get this effect.

One of my blog readers asked an interesting question: Why aren't there other photos floating around of this tornado, whether professional (what's the only other town in the U.S. besides State College, PA, with a large collection of meteorologists??), amateur, or automated (security cams and whatnot). Was there a lack of lightning to illuminate the sky? I checked the lightning animation (shown above, I wish I could pull a more localized view like I did for the radars, but that was all I could get my hands on today). It looked like there was plenty of strikes, so what gives?It looks like from Google Earth that Atlanta is pretty flat; it also probably suffers from the same problem that plagues chasers in the Southeast - plenty of tall trees in the way. So there might have not been very many locations to get a good vantage point from. The news article lists Shane's location as "Howell Mill Road" which is one of the main roads through the city so that doesn't happen - he was up high, in a condiminium according to the article, which makes sense. Maybe there aren't that many condiminums on that side of the city with that view? It's hard to say. If you're from Atlanta, maybe you can help me out here. Drop me a line at community @ accuweather.com

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