What did I see here??

[Bryan_Knitter]

Storm motion is from left to right in the picture (South to North). This is the front edge of the storm, so it can't be a wall cloud, right? I don't think it's a shelf cloud either...


IMG_20110621_192301.jpg by Bryan_Knitter, on Flickr


IMG_20110621_192246.jpg by Bryan_Knitter, on Flickr

 

[rdale]

Offhand looks like a shelf cloud due to the tilt I see on the right side at cloud level.

 

[Bryan_Knitter]

Cool. Would this be the profile view of the shelf cloud then? Looking at it from the side?

 

[Jeff Duda]

I could see this being a wall cloud. Perspective makes a big, difference, though. Bryan, you say that storm motion is from left to right, which is south to north. I see a big mass of precip behind the feature that doesn't appear to be correctly aligned with the angle of the feature for it to be a shelf cloud. Usually if you can see the angle of the shelf cloud, then you must be to the side of it, so you shouldn't see a bunch of precip behind it (to its side) like that. I suppose, however, it could be a shelf cloud if the resulting squall line was oblique to your angle of view here. Can you give a time and location or a radar image?

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Real simple question: Is the tilt of the "cloud of interest" directed toward or away from the rain shaft? If it is toward the rain shaft, it is a wall cloud as the updraft contained in the wall cloud is ingesting the high(er) humidity air from the downdraft. If it is oriented away from the rain shaft, it's a shelf cloud and is the result of the cooler air from the downdraft interacting with the warm, moist air ahead of the storm.

 

[Bryan_Knitter]

The best radar image I can get is 23min too early. The pic was taken at 0022Z (7:22 pm CDT). I marked my location on the pic. I guess the storm in my image is the one behind the one that appears to be right on top of me.

Radar by Bryan_Knitter, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[kmreid]

It is a little hard to tell without seeing it in motion. Someone correct me if I am wrong but it could possibly be just some inflow.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Yeah, sorry, but that image doesn't help. Given the apparent storm mode (seemingly unorganized...probably ordinary cells), it's just too hard to say what the radar looked like 22 minutes later when you took the picture. Velocity would help.