A question of definition

[Jim Saueressig]

While chasing last spring I ran across a few things that were different than what I had run across before. In this case I had been following some cells which had strong rotation the whole time but never really produced anything.

One main cell had just passed when I noticed a change in the clouds in the flanking line right behind the main cell. I started shooting some shots and some video from my camera and watched as it wound itself up and started feeding the main cell that had just passed. As this was going on there was a very thin horizontal rope like band that was flowing into the center of this and ended up as a larger funnel in the center of the rotation. In the following picture you can follow the funnel to the end and go horizontal and see some of the remaining rope feeding the funnel. I have a short video that shows this things position to the main cell with a clear slot between. The video was previous to the photos.

I have been told it was everything from a completely separated wall cloud to a separated upflow area. So my question is "What is this thing technically." Sorry if its a stupid question but I am more familiar with the definite storm attributes and this was really different than anything I usually see. I am shooting this facing the storm east of me.

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[Shane Adams]

It looks to me like a new storm was forming right behind the main one, and somehow got itself rotating quickly; I grabbed the cursor and slid the bar to watch the clip in high speed, and the rotation in the new cell is awesome. This new storm seemed to form right off the flank line and to the southwest of the original storm. Possibly even distinct propagation in progress?

 

[Jim Saueressig]

It looks to me like a new storm was forming right behind the main one, and somehow got itself rotating quickly; I grabbed the cursor and slid the bar to watch the clip in high speed, and the rotation in the new cell is awesome. This new storm seemed to form right off the flank line and to the southwest of the original storm. Possibly even distinct propagation in progress?

My original thoughts had also been that it was a new independent cell but the odd thing was how very small it was and how fast it started its intense rotation which was nearly as fast as it was forming. It just never got very big at all, it would have probably been two miles or less from me. It appeared to be feeding the other cell so some the ideas from other people left me wondering if it was indeed a product of the main cell that had just passed.

Thanks for the input Shane.