Arizona Tornado?

[Kem Poyner]

Sorry for the delay in posting this question. Last July a friend of mine took this picture with her cell phone. I wish I knew the exact date, but I do not. It was taken in central Arizona around the Camp Verde area she said. I am not sure that it is truely a tornado or a wet microburst. It does seem to have a core that tapers towards the bottom. I did not think that is a charactoristic of rain...that usually maintains the same width to the ground? Since Arizona tornadoes are so scarce, I wanted others to look and see what they think. The photo is straight off her cell phone with no editing or photoshop...she is an older lady with no experience with editing stuff.
Kem

 

[Bryan Stokes]

It looks like a rain shaft to me.

Bryan

 

[Greg Campbell]

Pretty sure it's just a rain shaft. They can appear quite dense at times.
The puffy clouds and relatively bright light levels are all wrong for a severe t-storm. Even a landspout or gustnado would need a more vigorous parent storm.

 

[Allan Jeffers]

I agree, looks a lot like a rainshaft

 

[Bart_Comstock]

I agree that it is a rain shaft.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Rain shaft ,

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Rain shaft for me too, but very deceptive

 

[Jason Boggs]

No doubt it's a rain shaft.

 

[David Wolfson]

With the others -- a rain shaft. Note the downdraft outflow at the surface. The taper is mostly in the direction the storm is probably moving (same as rain foot) and is probably due to downwind precip propagation below cloud level.

 

[Zach Borst]

Definitely an EF-5