Look at these photos...... thoughts?

[DRMabe]

Yesterday evening, I chased a tornado warned cell near Pilot Mountain NC. Had alot of hail, some golf balls. I had a rotating wall cloud, photo included. I could get very close to it due to bad roads and trees, but when it passed closest to me I was driving and did confirm some rotation. I had something else to do later that evening so had to break off of the storm after 15 miles or so. The wall cloud appeared to break apart, I was running out or decent road options so I stopped to take a few structure shots as the storm passed. I was in my vehicle, stopped briefly at a stop sign taking photos. I could see a car in the distance coming up behind me to I shot a few quick photos and headed for home. Just now got around to editing the photos....noticed something I didn't really notice while I was out there. Looks like a rope funnel cloud with smooth well defined edges in the top of two photos. I was in a hurry, so I didn't worry much with composition as much and quickly shot the photos. In the vertical image, you can see the top of it.....not a whole lot of cloud above it and thats what has me doubting. May have just have been a strange feature on the under side of the cloud. Never seen a funnel cloud like that, and never saw a rope looking scud with smooth edges like that before either. I can't say if it was rotating as I was in a hurry and only noticed it during opening the RAW files for edit. Included a few shots of the storm, included the 2 photos in question.....the last 2. Thoughts??

These are the photos in question. Taken west of the storm behind the precip. Wall cloud had just appeared to have broken apart minutes before these were taken.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

There isn't much to go on when trying to make any conclusions by looking at the photos. It's tough to tell in the shots if there's anything mesocyclone-related happening. And sometimes turbulence can create some funnel-like features around the base of a storm. The photos are still great in any event, especially that blocky wall cloud shot, and it's fairly rare in NC to get good mammatus like those in the photo ... I'm surprised you could get such shots in the terrain and trees north of Winston! I used to climb the trail to the top of Pilot Mtn all the time when I lived in Greensboro. I bet the view of this storm would have been sweet up there! My bro in NC gets frustrated because it's impossible usually to get a good view of the sky around all the trees in NC, which makes it tough to tell when a tornado is headed your way there.

 

[DRMabe]

The terrain is a beast here. I was actually planning to head up to the summit when I left home to chase it. It was originally tracking to pass about 3-5 miles north of Pilot Mnt state park. When I got there, wouldn't you know the road going up to the summit was closed for repaving for the 24th and 25th.....this date being the 25th. The storm ended up turning a bit and at one point looked as if it would pass directly over the mountain. Wouldn't want to be up there if it got really bad. GRLevel3 was indicating a meso within the storm for maybe a 20 minute period.

 

[Albert Moor]

"I could get very close to it due to bad roads and trees"....did you mean could not ?

 

[DRMabe]

"I could get very close to it due to bad roads and trees"....did you mean could not ?

That's right, should have been "couldn't".