Some strong thunderstorms developed over western Newfoundland Thursday afternoon and evening. These storms moved through portions of the West Coast and dropped heavy amounts of rain in short order. Some locations around Corner Brook picked up nearly 50 mm of rain in under 2 hours.

While the rainfall is impressive, the more impressive thing was one of these storm cells that moved through the area had enough rotation to drop a funnel cloud near Deer Lake. Initially, I was extremely skeptical as these events, while not unheard of, are extremely rare in our Province. Then I was shown a crucial piece of evidence that make this occurrence much more likely in my mind. The observer from the Deer Lake airport put the abbreviation for a funnel cloud in the 5:30 PM NDT METAR.

The text I have highlighted in yellow is the observation of the funnel cloud! And for those interested, METAR stands for Meteorological Aerodrome Report (METAR), also known as Meteorological Terminal Aviation Routine Weather Report, Meteorological Terminal Air Report or Meteorological Airfield Report is a format for reporting weather information. METARs are standard across the world for weather observations.

After this, the pictures and videos started coming in. The first ones I saw were from Steve Stuckless, who got a very good snap of the funnel cloud from the Deer Lake area.

Steve was also able to capture a great video of the funnel, where you can clearly see the rotation.

Here are a couple more pictures of the funnel from different angles

So we had visual and photo/video evidence of the funnel. But what about radar? Can we confirm it there? The answer is yes. In order to do so, we must look at velocity data. Typically I’m showing reflectivity data on the news, where the brighter the colour, the heavier the precipitation is over a given location. However, the radars also look at atmospheric velocities– or the direction the wind is going with respect to the radar site. Without getting overly specific, when looking at this imagery we are looking for areas of red and green right next to each other. That’s called a couplet. The radar on Marble Mountain did indeed pick up a couplet for a short time last evening.

Funnel Cloud vs. Tornado

For those of you wondering why this was a funnel cloud and not a tornado, it comes down to where the bottom of the funnel ends up. In this case, the funnel never seems to make it to the ground. In that case, it remains a funnel cloud. These are typically harmless but can look scary.

If the funnel reached the ground then it would be considered a tornado if it made contact on land and a water spout if the contact was made on the water. Again, in this case, I currently have no evidence suggesting this circulation reached the ground.