United States—Backlit by sunlight, a brown tornado towers perhaps 4,000 feet above the parched plains of Kansas... Photo credit: Jim Reed; found at National Geographic.This photo fascinates me because the vortex of the tornado appears to descend from (ascend from?) a patch of clear sky rather than from beneath a wall cloud.
i believe it's a dust devil rather than a tornado
ReplyDeleteI've seen plenty of dust devils, living in the Midwest, but I've never seen one over 15-20 feet high. Of course, I've never seen a tornado like that picture either...
ReplyDeleteDust devil. We had one take the roof off our house in Sedona, damndest thing I'd ever seen. And it came up out of nowhere on a relatively calm sunny day.
ReplyDeleteRemember tornados can curve - when they can come down from the cloud the funnel can be twisted and go waay to the side before touching the ground.
ReplyDeleteAlso note that the ground appears to be totally dry. I suspect a rotating cloud would follow a storm, not be on its vanguard.
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