Funnel photographed Denali NP Alaska

[Chris Bethurum]

I took pics at about 1235 Aug 5. Another viewer took really good pics up close. I was much further away at mile 18-20 from the entrance. It is more difficult than it should be to find a NWS number to report what I saw. It is not real time but they may be interested. I took lots of good storm pics after the funnel.

 

[Adam Lucio]

How about posting said picture of said funnel cloud?

 

[Ben Holcomb]

I just got back from Denali the last week of July. Didn't have to call the NWS, but some of the cloud formations were pretty awesome, especially the storms firing off the mountains. Would love to see pics of the funnel cloud!

 

[Chris Bethurum]

 

[Chris Bethurum]

The gentleman who got good pics from up close was near Polychrome Mountain on the same single road that goes about 90 miles into the park. We were both on national park buses. I mentioned Stormtrack.org twice to him but decided not to ask for contact info in order to help the process of getting the pics out there along. He stated he knew someone who works professionally in weather, but do not know where they work.

I could not sense any rotation but you can see the area above and around the funnel looks like a wall cloud. I saw it intact for probably 2-3 minutes and saw it break up with what seemed like about 30 seconds. Not being familiar with the area, first time there, and not having studied Topo maps for the area I am not sure how far away it was, but my gut is 10-15 miles. I have not checked how far Polychrome Mountain is from where is was, but his pics proved to me it was not a tornado but a funnel assuming it was not longstanding and he witnessed the whole event, which I believe he did. My pics left this undetermined because to the naked eye and in looking at the pics, the bottom extend of the funnel appears to be behind and below the ridgeline.

BTW, that is not Mt. McKinley sometimes referred to as 'Denali' or the high one. As you might imagine I did not seen Denali in full due to the storms. I saw up to around 8-10k feet or so. I would say Denali was about 50 miles due west of this funnel based on where I viewed the mountain from at the Eielson shuttle stop about 70 miles into the park. Using an image with distance scale in that visitor center I determined I was about 25-30 miles NNE from Denali at that visitor center. Denali is one heck of a mountain due to the fact it rises out of relatively low surrounding elevation compared to mountains like Everest. Strangely enough I drove 8500 miles to and from Alaska from the Los Angeles area and never rose about about 4000 ft, though there were very high mountain peaks within striking distance of me from WA state through Canada and east central through south central Alaska.
I drove to Colorado late June and went to the top of Pike's Peak above 14K and used the Eisenhower tunnel above 11K on I70.