Wall Cloud, Scud or ?

[Eian Greene]

I bagged this formation along US24 today about 3:10P...

Wall cloud, or not? The storm in question had weak rotation at the time this photo was taken. The location of the feature was 3SW Calhan, CO

 

[Wes Carter]

Eian, I don't want to mislead you. As Skip pointed out, it is hard to tell anything definitive from a static photograph. But to me it looks like it could possibly be a wall cloud but it could also be scud or just a random lowering. If that was under the rain free base I would have kept my eye on it a bit to see what it was doing.

One thing that I cannot tell is if it were actually connected to the cloud base. I can see some kind of delineation where the colors don't mate up perfectly making me think that it possible could just be a clump of scud. Maybe someone else could shed some more light.

 

[Scott Nelson]

Found this additional photo of the storm that started my questioning on this thread. Still wondering as to what this event was. Believe this was right before first photo.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I can't see any way to tell one way or the other what is in that picture. The feature is too close and there's no perspective. It also doesn't help that there are trees blocking nearly half of the image.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

That looks like the underside of an arcing shelf to me, i.e. whale's mouth.

 

[Jared Farrer]

The picture isnt detailed enough for me to call it a wall cloud. You just dont see enough to be able to really tell. That being said, Id say it looks arcus to me. But the atmosphere can produce some pretty strange things from time to time. I just saw some mammatas last night that were transparent kinda like a mackeral sky but with clear see through mammatas, hummm!

I would be able to tell ya if we had maybe a skew-t and a surface plot or upper air plot.

 

[Jason Foster]

To me, neither of Scott's photos look like a wall cloud....as this shape is very common in the mid-Atlantic region. I've photographed many of them...especially years ago when I was just learning storm structure. These tend to have a wedge shape, and the perspective to which you view it can sometime fool you into thinking it is a wall cloud. However, more times then not, they are not directly under the main updraft, but pushed a little further out. Then never rotate, and usually form and dissipate within 3 to 7 minutes. Often just cool air getting lifted and condensing rapidly. If you had a broader view of the base of the storm you would likely have seen more low hanging items in addition to this one.

 

[Scott Nelson]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. As mentioned in the original post, the structure at the bottom of the first picture WAS rotating. But it's understandable that this wouldn't be considered your classic "wall cloud". And as Jason suspected, it was gone within roughly 7 minutes. Simply trying to learn a bit more about certain storm features up here in the Northeast. Sadly Jeff, there is nothing I can do about the trees around here. Thus the reason it's hard to truly understand what storm feature is hitting you until it's on top of your head. Ironically, if the Asian Long Horn Beatle has it's way--- they will soon need to clear cut the entire state of MA and we'll have better viewing then the plains.

 

[Stephen Barabas]

I'm not sure if he's on this forum, but he took this pretty sweet picture of a wall cloud with a possible condensing funnel Friday afternoon at around 4pm. The area is around Naugatuck Connecticut... tornado warned. I'm sure he won't mind that I post at photo or two of his on here.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Boy, that looks mighty suspicious. If it was rotating and/or their was rising motion on it, I would be 99% sure that was a funnel cloud/tornado. I have a similar shot or two from a chase in Iowa last month. If I can get video stills from them I'll post them to show you.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

I'm not sure if he's on this forum, but he took this pretty sweet picture of a wall cloud with a possible condensing funnel Friday afternoon at around 4pm. The area is around Naugatuck Connecticut... tornado warned. I'm sure he won't mind that I post at photo or two of his on here.

Steve, there was a confirmed tornado in Shelton CT on Friday, I'm guessing from the same circulation as in your photos, which are quite impressive. I caught the same t-warned cell briefly after it was west of I-91 and the circulation was less pronounced. Got one good look then heavy precip killed all visibility... What I saw was a cell that seemed to be in transition - it still had some rotation, but the meso was very linear and you could tell there was an outflow-dominant shelf cloud in its near future. Hmm, probably should be discussing this in the correct forum... Very nice pics, though, I think you caught the cell at its peak.

Edit: on rereading the post, I'm not clear on who took these pics, but they're impressive whoever it was.