My first photographed Wall Cloud

[Skip Talbot]

I took a storm class & the pictures to distinguish these types of clouds were helpful but still confusing. Please post more if you have them.

No picture available. But, I am curious what this would be called:

Driving through the country one afternoon, when there were severe storms in the area, I saw a strange "tint" (for lack of a better word) in the distance. I watched as it approached & realized it was dust I was seeing-a big wall of dust-it seemed to be moving slowly, but as it approached it seemed to be move very quickly. I guess this all happened over about 10-15 minutes. I was sort of horrified, yet mesmerized b/c I hadn't seen anything like it-the whole thing was at least 3-5 miles across & it was rolling horizontally, not spinning like a tornado. I could actually see the dust being picked up & then, the long dust/cloud area turned almost black & seemed to slightly shift so it was coming right at me. It scared the crap out of me & it literally looked like a huge hand or creature, clawing up the dust coming to get me (I know, I can be dramatic-). I drove into a farmhouse just as the blast of wind hit. Luckily, the people ahead of me on the road lived there. We dashed to the basement & I could see the wind bending the trees & hail falling/lotsa rain. It was over fairly quickly & no real damage done. So, was this a supercell & what part of the supercell was this? What was going on here?

Thanks in advance!

Do you remember the date and the location? I can only guess since I don't have much information to go off of here, but I'm going to say you encountered the forward flanking downdraft of a strong thunderstorm. At 3-5 miles in size, that's too large for a microburst. Since you encountered what sounds like the precipitation core after the dust hit, and since I'm assuming you were in fairly good weather beforehand, I'd rule out the rear flanking downdraft. Sounds like you got hit by one of our common, fast moving squall lines that we get here in IL. They move in quickly with a lot of wind followed by a short lived, yet intense barrage of hail and heavy rain. If the ground is particularly dry ahead of the storm, the gust front from the forward flanking downdraft will kick up large amounts of dust. This is a good area to watch for gustnado action as the high wind shear can create short lived vorticies.

 

[Eric Hostetter]

I just joined a couple months ago and never had an opportunity to post my first wall cloud shot, which I caught a few years ago. Guess I got pretty lucky (for this part of the country). Funnel clouds and waterspouts are not uncommon off the California coast, however most are not like this.

The screen grabs here show a rare low-topped anti-cyclonic supercell as it moved toward shore. Over time, it produced a classic wall cloud and a brief funnel.

BTW, low-topped anti-cyclonic rotating tornadic supercells are just one of several unusual weather occurrences that makes this place so unique.

 

[Amymarie]

Do you remember the date and the location? I can only guess since I don't have much information to go off of here, but I'm going to say you encountered the forward flanking downdraft of a strong thunderstorm. At 3-5 miles in size, that's too large for a microburst. Since you encountered what sounds like the precipitation core after the dust hit, and since I'm assuming you were in fairly good weather beforehand, I'd rule out the rear flanking downdraft. Sounds like you got hit by one of our common, fast moving squall lines that we get here in IL. They move in quickly with a lot of wind followed by a short lived, yet intense barrage of hail and heavy rain. If the ground is particularly dry ahead of the storm, the gust front from the forward flanking downdraft will kick up large amounts of dust. This is a good area to watch for gustnado action as the high wind shear can create short lived vorticies.

This was a couple of years ago. It was near Goodfield, IL. I used to travel a lot between Peoria & Bloomington, taking country routes. This sounds about right. There was an unconfirmed tornado about 2 miles West ( I can't remember if it was NW or SW) of me about the same time. The sky was very alive that day & a lot of storms... but it was not storming before or after this short-lived rain/hail/wind where I was. Sounds like it could be what you are talking about.