Severe Weather Watcher Handbook

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130-131  E/E   130 is a close-up of what could easily be interpreted as a true funnel cloud. The smooth, tapered shape seems correct and the clouds above could be viewed as a messy lowering. Not so. It is a very deceiving false funnel - scud moulded to near-perfection in a twisting updraft. Take a look at 131 to see the context. The storm's core is left of the view and the dark base is a combination flanking line and gust front, since outflow is pushing it forward, forming scud. The low cloud at lower left is a true, though disorganized, lowering. The false funnel appears to its right, separate and unrelated to it.

132-135  Four inflow tails. In 132, outflow driving a sharp gust front is lifting scud in chunks and in tails within stronger updrafts. 133 and 134 are lowerings with an inflow tail extending back towards the rain and outflow. The cloud mass in 135 is the backside of a storm. A short flanking line ends (SW side) as a tapered extension of the cloud base where the updrafts are focused to a point. As seen in 18 and 119, such LP storms can produce brief true funnels at the very back, too.

136  SW/E  A collapsing heavy rain core (lower right) has sent out a burst of outflow, forming a giant cloud "claw" that lunges forward with teeth bared. Along the leading edge of this gust front, numerous small updrafts condense as fingers of scud that can briefly look very much like funnel clouds.

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