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Joined: 14 Feb 2005
Posts: 5730
Location: Cayman Islands
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 Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:05 am Post subject: |
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stuval - Funnel clouds are a form of tornado and extremely rare in the tropics. We sometimes get a much more mild and scaled down version called a cold funnel cloud.
Cold-core or cold-air funnel clouds are usually short-lived and generally much weaker than the vortices produced by supercells. Although cold-core funnels rarely make ground contact, they may touch down briefly and become weak tornadoes or waterspouts. They are not at all a serious threat and in the almost 15 years that I have lived here, I have never heard of any dangerous incident. I've seen them out on boats before and I'll admit that they can look a little threatening while at the helm. 
From Wikipedia:
Unlike the related phenomenon associated with severe thunderstorms, cold-core funnels are generally associated with partly cloudy skies in the wake of cold fronts, where atmospheric instability and moisture is sufficient to support towering cumulus clouds but not precipitation. The mixing of cooler air in the lower troposphere with air flowing in a different direction in the middle troposphere causes the rotation on a horizontal axis, which, when deflected vertically by atmospheric conditions, can become a funnel cloud. |
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