Cloud picture question

[Catina Jones]

Around 5:45 tonight took some pictures of the sky to the west of my house. Not really sure what I was looking at but really had never seen the clouds do this before. According to radar, and bear in mind I am a novice and am just using Weather Underground, the line of storms were still quite a bit west from my location.

Thank you.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Catina, what in particular is unusual to you about these pictures? I see a cloud base at the top of the image, some rain bands underneath, and those chunks underneath and near the ground that look like scud (cumulus fractus). Forgive me if I'm missing something.

 

[Catina Jones]

No that is what I wanted to know, as I am just learning and this is the first time I have actually seen these features.

Thanks!

 

[Dave Kaplow]

Catina, are you asking mainly about the wispy low scud that appears in the pictures? It's impossible to tell for sure, but that's probably scud forming in the moist outflow from the nearby precipitation, although a lot depends on what the scud tags are doing. If this stuff was just kind of floating around randomly or being pushed in one direction, then it's likely just an outflow feature and not of much interest to a chaser. On the other hand, if you could visibly see those scud tags rising into the cloud base, or better yet rotating as they did so, then you have a much more interesting situation where you're seeing the inflow into the base of a convective updraft, possibly a supercell.

You may have seen people here on ST seem to get exited about pictures that appear very similar to what you have posted. That's because it's very difficult to tell just from looking at the image alone exactly what's going on. So much depends on the context... For instance, the lowering in the middle distance of the top pic could be interpreted as being a wall cloud of a supercell wrapped by a clear slot, but this is unlikely if as you say there was only the line of not very close storms. On the other hand, if you know you're looking at the main updraft base of a severe storm, that provides enough context to suggest things like wall cloud and clear slot.

It's actually pretty easy these days to learn the basics of identifying severe weather and the various cloud features that accompany it. I'd recommend looking at one of the online spotter training websites, that's probably the quickest way to learn the basics.

 

[Catina Jones]

Thanks again for the information. I kind of figured out it was not a wall cloud as like I said the main storm was still probably 10 miles away. I was thinking scud but did not realize that it could be ahead of the approaching storm. It was rising but not rotating.

I do plan on doing an online spotter training when my girls start school in the fall. It has been hard with a 3 and 5 year old and being able to concentrate while watching them.

Again thanks!

 

[Kyle Soldani]

Thank you for not assuming it was a wall cloud . That's the biggest mistake I always hear/see.

My chase partner works 911 dispatch, I'll be in the field reporting and he'll get 911 calls saying there's a funnel when it's just low level scud.

Skip summed this up. You're just seeing typical structure there. Good start.

To get a jumpstart, checkout the following links.

Safety: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/stormspotting/safety.php

Guides: http://spotterguides.us/

Report Quality: http://wdtb.noaa.gov/modules/spotters/player.html