Funnel Cloud Spotted Over Milwaukie

April 6, 2011 by Bruce Sussman Leave a Comment

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It’s a rare site, but April 6, 2011 was the kind of day where things like this could happen.

Hail, downpours, thunder and lightning.

And above the 1600 Block of McLoughlin Boulevard in Milwaukie, Oregon, Rob Tinner says he took these eerie shots of a funnel cloud. This was related to the thunderstorm that dropped inches of hail in Lake Oswego. The cell then moved northeast to Oak Grove & Milwaukie.

The Difference Between A Funnel CloudÂ And AÂ Tornado

Funnel clouds look like tornadoes. Similar shape, hanging down from the cloud and sometimes rotation you can detect. But funnel clouds do not touch the ground. So they appear, freak everyone out and then vanish without doing anything. We often call these ‘cold core funnels’ in the Northwest because they form in relatively cool storms, like the ones that hit the metro area this time.
Tornadoes, by definition, have to touch the ground. And when they do, the damage can be extensive as we saw in Aumsville, Oregon in late 2010.

What if this funnel cloud would’ve touched down?

Â It likely would have caused some minor damage and the headline to this post would say ‘tornado’ instead of ‘funnel cloud’!

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