06/04/10 DISC: Monroe, WA. funnel cloud

[Rocky Rascovich]

Hopefully this post will be acceptable on here as I wanted to bring to attention a relatively rare event that took place thisevening in western WA. state near Monroe which is a little north of SEA.

A well developed funnel cloud formed a little after 5pm PDT on the outskirts of Monroe. Apparently it did not touch down, but based on the video and pics I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if a brief suction spot hit the ground. Below are two links to the event from different tv stations. Apparently the PSCZ was pretty active thisafternoon along with fairly cold temps aloft (around -20C @ 500mb. level) but throughout most of the column, winds were fairly unidirectional.

As rare as they are in this part of this world, I would think that todays set up across the SEA area would offer little to no chances of this happening with winds being so unidirectional.. maybe the instability/lapse rates would suffice? An interesting occurrence to say the least. Perhaps some of the folks on here from the SEA area can chime in with their thoughts about this.

http://www.komonews.com/younews/95664619.html?img=2&mg=t

http://www.king5.com/community/slideshows/Possible-funnel-cloud-seen-near-Monroe-95662744.html

 

[Dennis Dennison]

Looks like it was over water- probably a cold air funnel

 

[Billy Griffin]

What an amazing day with the convergence zone firing !!!
I'll post photos and video soon. Been a tough commute through traffic trying to chase this afternoon / evening. At least 4 funnel clouds, and from what I've observed and captured on video, YES indeed a tornado. (a very weak one)

No, it was not over water... the condensation funnel never really got down but for about 45 seconds. The other times it had a 3/4 condensation with a tranlucent area of rotation at the surface.

Lots of photos and video clips going up on KOMO, KIRO and KING news.
Lots of folks witnessed this and captured photos/video, so there should be plenty of documentation to look over.

This was one of my better tornado captures up here yet! Just a classic PSCZ day, but we had some nice instability and better moisture today. By 4pm, towers were going up really fast near Everett and I was confident something would produce at least a funnel.
This was NOT cold air funnel stuff...... this was TRUE convection (albeit low topped,) with what I believe the NWS will rate (confirm) as an EF-0 tornado. I have to get the video to them tomorrow for the investigation.

Wish you would have been here for this one, Rocky !!! The cloud bases were really nice and structure was incredible. Gotta love that PSCZ.

 

[Josh Murfield]

How did the pictures and video come out? Were you able to confirm from looking at either if this funnel ever did in fact touch down?

As you probably know there are a lot of pictures in the media around here being posted, and the TV meteorologists are swearing that there was no touchdown, this was not a tornado. It sure looked like the condensation reached very close to the ground, wouldn't be too hard to imagine at least a brief spin-up on the ground.

I'm kicking myself because I live only 20 minutes or so from Monroe, and was out and about at that time but was out of touch weather-wise and had no inkling of anything happening over there. We only chased a few times a year when living in Nebraska (lived there up until 6 months ago), it would have been a blast to catch a nice funnel like this HERE, which would have been a great catch for us even back home.

 

[Kurt Silvey]

Since I grew up in Seattle, I always find these interesting. Two years after moving to the area, there was an F3 that went through the midway area (just south of seatac). At the time I was 7 and lived about 4 - 5 miles south in Federal Way. It did quit a bit of damage, as this is a very populated area. Luckily nobody was killed.This is the closest a tornado has ever come to my home, funny, considering I have spent the last 20 some years in the plains. In 2001 this tornado actually struck my old grade school! http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4009171.html