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| Screen grab from a Jeffery Smith-created time lapse of a rotating mini supercell thunderstorm last Friday. This is looking north from West Rutland, Vermont. The lower cloud over the slight ridge on the right side of the photo appears to be a possible wall cloud, which can be a precursor ro a tornado, No tornadoes occurred with this storm. |
It developed near Ticonderoga, New York and by the time it traveled the short distance into northern and central Rutland County, it was rotating and spewing damaging winds and hail.
The storm passed just north of West Rutland before thrashing Proctor and the north and east sides of Rutland with winds that tossed down trees and power lines.
In West Rutland, photographer Jeffrey Smith, who does a lot of fantastic drone and surface shots in and around the town, captured an absolutely fascinating time lapse of the storm as it passed just to the north of West Rutland and slammed into Proctor.
Here's the video. A description of what's going on is below.
The time lapse video is over West Rutland, looking north toward Hanley Mountain. The center of the storm is right behind the mountain.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington had issued a severe thunderstorm warning pretty much as it entered Vermont around the town of Benson. The severe storm warning was still in effect when this video was shot.
Meteorologists had noticed broad rotation in the storm by the time it reached its position seen in the video. But correctly, in my opinion, they did not issue a tornado warning as the storm did not appear to be preparing to form one,
However, the video shows the storm might have come close to creating a brief one.
Despite the extremely high quality of Smith's video, it's hard to tell exactly what some aspects of the storm meant.
As you can see in the time lapse, the storm was clearly rotating, left to right. Near the beginning of the photo, it seems like a spot with lower clouds might be spinning, but it quickly gets disrupted, probably an effect from Hanley Mountain .
Especially when you see a gush of rain start to come over the mountain, a lower cloud becomes much more visible on the right side of the screen. Toward the end of the video, that cloud lowers further, becomes more round shaped and clearly starts to spin.
That to me really looks like a wall cloud. If a real meteorologist wants to weigh in and correct me, please do! If a tornado were to form, a wall cloud is where it would originate
When my alleged wall cloud started spinning, that's when radar would have seen the tightening spin, and the National Weather Service would have been tempted to issue a tornado warning. But the spin was probably between scans and was very brief.
The video cuts off, but it looks like that gush of wind and rain. would have destroyed the spin on the cloud, ensuring that this supercell remained just a severe storm. Many wall clouds do not produce tornadoes, and here was an example of that.
Still, with this storm, Vermont could have had its fourth tornado of the year. But, thankfully, it didn't happen.
My alleged wall cloud was over the western edge of Proctor when the film was taken. There was tree damage in Proctor, but that was due to straight line winds.
Also, notice the trees at the very bottom of the film. You can see the wind is blowing toward the storm. That supercell was ingesting warm, humid air to keep it alive.
The storm went on to produce straight line wind damage on the north and east sides of Rutland and in Mendon. The storm appears to weaken a bit after crossing the green mountains. But it regrouped, and continued on as a spinning supercell through central and southern New Hampshire, leaving a trail of wind and hail damage behind.
Again, Many thanks to Jeffrey Smith for permission to use the video!
