[connatix_element_embed script_id=76479eb07cee40bd93939563551fbcb6 player_id=9be9c680-c459-4acb-af21-654a2ccca384 video_id=8501dbdf-7795-4afa-a2d7-53e5dd41f0d3] What in the world was that odd, funnel-like cloud seen near the U.S. Capitol building during a round of thunderstorms in D.C. early on Tuesday afternoon? Photos of the phenomenon quickly went viral on social media. To onlookers, it looked like a strand of hair, a worm, a tadpole, a curlicue — the precursor to a tornado, perhaps? In reality, not quite. “It is not a tornado, it is not a twister,” WTOP traffic reporter and weather researcher Dave Dildine said. The thunderstorm cloud it briefly dangled from lacked the meaningful storm-scale rotation that would signal a tornado was forming, Dildine said. What it actually was, Dildine explained, was a mid-level funnel cloud. “When storm-chasing, you see a lot of these around developing storms. They often only last a few seconds and are common when storms are developing vertically. Air swirls as it moves where it wants to go — whether it’s from volcanic vents, steam from the wet ground or ascending from the base of a towering thunderstorm,” Dildine said. WTOP meteorologist Mike Stinneford added that the cloud was most likely a very localized area of rotation associated with a strong thunderstorm moving into the eastern District, past Capitol Hill. “I am hearing that the funnel dissipated quickly, and there was never any danger of a tornado touching down,” Stinneford said.
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Dildine said that funnel clouds come in a range of shapes and sizes but the benign variation seen on Tuesday is not formed by the same process as a traditional tornado. WTOP’s Emily Venezky contributed to this report.
