Rare Colorado Funnel Cloud

[Charles Kuster]

A very unusual event occurred in Lake County Colorado on the morning of June 13, 2010. A cold air funnel cloud was observed near Leadville (elevation 10,152 ft)! As of now, there has been no confirmation that the funnel cloud extended to the surface (NWS event report). The mountain in the background of the picture associated with the report is Mt. Massive (elevation 14,421ft). Here is the 500mb map from 12Z June 13th as well.

There was some sunshine early in the morning, (some “heatingâ€￾) but the temperature at the time of the funnel cloud was 45 degrees Fahrenheit and it had snowed the night before. In fact, only 3 hours prior to the funnel cloud, .3â€￾ of snow was still on the ground at my location (1.4 miles west northwest of Leadville). Also, there was no lightning with the storm, but ¼â€￾ hail fell 1.4 miles west northwest of Leadville between 10:15am and 10:30am MDT.

Of course, I was not home for this event so these pictures were sent to me from a friend and the above reports were relayed to me by a family member. This was a remarkable and rare meteorological event!

Pictures taken by Lisa Clune between 10:19am and 10:21am MDT from the south side of Leadville, CO and are looking west.

 

[Mike Moore]

Some video here...



From this news story: http://www.examiner.com/x-219-Denver-Weather-Examiner~y2010m6d14-Rare-cold-air-funnel-causes-stir-in-high-altitude-Leadville-Colorado--Video

 

[Lanny Dean]

I wonder if Jon Davies would mind doing a quick write up regarding this? I saw this on the news and found it pretty interesting considering the elevation.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

This appears to be a cold air funnel. These have little relation to available CAPE and such, but the vorticity is caused by an upper low or even orographic (mountain) enhanced wind flow.

Very interesting - Thanks for posting!

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

wow that is cool! I've always heard that tornado/funnels in the mountains were possible but had never seen one until now.

 

[Scott Olson]

I would think these to be a somewhat releatively occurence in the higher elevations anytime an upper low moves through and there is not complete snow cover in the higher elevations. They are certainly fairly common on the plains, it's still cool nonetheless.

 

[Charles Kuster]

I would think these to be a somewhat releatively occurence in the higher elevations anytime an upper low moves through and there is not complete snow cover in the higher elevations. They are certainly fairly common on the plains, it's still cool nonetheless.

That would make sense, but for some reason this is not a common event at least in Lake County. Nothing like this has been recorded in the past 30 years, and to my knowledge a funnel cloud has never been reported in Lake County. It is possible that they occur unnoticed or unrecorded especially before 1950, but this was quite a rare event for this area. It certainly got this small town buzzing for a while!