Funnel to Tornado Ratios, and What I`ve Seen

Chris over at Storms-R-Us wrote an interesting blog entry on the ratio of funnel clouds (tornadoes not touching the ground) to actual tornadoes. This was sparked by a StormTrack article. Storm chasers disagree on what the right number is, though there are certainly more funnels than tornadoes touching down. One of Chris's points was that the visibility here in the East (like me, he is an Eastern chaser, based in Virginia) is so poor (due to mountains and tall trees) that we might mistake many tornadoes for funnels because we can't confirm circulation on the ground.

MY FIRST FUNNEL CLOUD (2004) READ MORE ABOUT THIS PICTURE & THIS STORM

This got me thinking about identifying tornadoes or funnel clouds, which I think I've talked about before here, but always deserves another mention. Believe it or not, I've never seen a tornado. When I saw my first funnel cloud in 2004 on vacation at Long Beach (Oak Island), NC (photo shown above), I wondered if I would be able to tell it from other cloud lowerings which look like funnels, but really aren't (see this page about non-tornadoes for some great examples, and also search for the tag "vertical" on our Photo Gallery to see more). Rule-of-thumb: If you can't see rotation, it may not be a funnel cloud.

Being within a quarter of a mile, there was no question with the one pictured above. It was rapidly circulating, fast enough to even catch my wife's eye, and she is no storm spotter (no offense, Honey). I wish I had my video camera!

The second funnel cloud that I saw (the next year, again at the beach) I did have to make the assumption that it was a funnel because I was too far away to see circulation, but I feel pretty confident about that declaration because of the shape, and it wasn't ragged at all like it could have been a benign cloud lowering called a "scud cloud."

MY SECOND FUNNEL CLOUD (2005) READ MORE ABOUT THIS PICTURE & THIS STORM

By the way, one of the coolest non-tornado vertical cloud pictures I've ever taken is shown below. This was taken in Asheville, NC in the early 1990's. If you've taken any pictures of funnels or tornadoes, upload them to the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery today!