Pics of Possible Funnel Cloud in NYC

Yesterday I posted some radar images of the large severe thunderstorm that made its way through the northern part of Long Island. I mentioned at the time that one storm spotter had called in a report of a funnel cloud to the NWS. That was in Flushing, NY (Queens County). But here are photos of the possible funnel from a spotter, Dan Castner, taken from New Jersey facing East:

UPDATE:The original radar image I posted was incorrect, having both his location and the time incorrect. I now believe that he was at the "X":

For whatever reason his report was not carried by the NWS. Dan said in an email to me: "I was on I-495 going East heading towards the Lincoln tunnel in North Bergen, NJ. I thought first was a scud cloud, but then I noticed it was actually moving in a twisting fashion, and went from occasionally obscured to in front of the rain area behind it. At first, actually, I thought perhaps it was a shadow. I had been looking at it for several minutes while stuck in traffic, but as soon as we noticed it moving, and then twisting, that’s when I was certain it was a funnel cloud. It appeared like a “twisting rope”, which is exactly what I reported to the National Weather Service. I was surprised that no one else reported this, as I was stuck in traffic and was able to watch it for 5-10 minutes. Let me know your thoughts on the photos."

Well, my initial reaction is that it does look like a funnel cloud, but it's impossible to tell without being there, or without seeing additional photos or video. The southwest location of the storm is the correct place for a tornado (in Tornado Alley, though that doesn't always work here in the East); you can download* a radar loop here).

For reasons that I'm going to be talking about in an upcoming blog entry, there are a lot of reasons that things can look like tornados or funnel clouds, but aren't. Most of those fail to explain what we're seeing here - the only thing I could think of is that perhaps it is a shadow from the hail shafts (which look white) or a hail-free area, but that probably wouldn't behave the way that Dan described above. It also looks a little too high and too near the outside of the storm for a funnel cloud, but I can't rule it out. Regardless of what it was, I'm surprised that more people didn't report it, given the amount of traffic heading towards it!

In any case, thanks for the pics, Dan, and keep storm-spotting!

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