Tuesday's severe storms that rolled through parts of the region created swirls of debris that appeared to resemble a tornado. Several folks reported seeing a funnel cloud. However, many weather features can create a tornado-like swirl. One of those is the gustnado.A gustnado is a short-lived swirl of wind (whirlwind) that develops on a thunderstorm outflow boundary called a gust front.
Gustnados develop from the ground up as winds interact with land and begin to swirl, picking up dust and debris. The result is similar to a small tornado. However, if you're brave enough to look closely, you'll see the gustnado is not attached to the cumulonimbus cloud or related to the storms rotation, unlike its cousin the tornado.
It CAN produce damage due to its straight-line winds that can reach over 70mph. Gustnado damage is typically limited to small trees, windows and tossing around of loose objects, but can be worse in a very strong storm.
Thankfully, we're not accustomed to seeing these acts of nature in these parts very often. So, being able to differentiate between the two while finding shelter is fairly difficult. Regardless of the culprit, wind damage was reported and the daily plans were disrupted for a short period of time. Had this been a strong tornado, this may be a different story.
Send your weather questions to: bwatts@wdbj7.com
--Meteorologist Brent Watts
1 comment:
That looks about like what I saw. It wasn't quite as large or dark, but had that shape. Thank you and the weather staff for keeping us informed during the storms. It was something I had never experienced before, and hope I don't again. I think I was more scared than the kids were.
Amy Jacobs
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