funnel cloud

Tornado touching down in Billings, Montana on 20 June, 2010, photographed from our deck six or seven miles away.

One of the interesting things about watching this funnel cloud, if I may say so, was seeing lightning like flashes at the point of the cloud where it seemed to meet the ground! They were just the height and width of the tip of the cloud and I saw them three separate times.

A few days later I spoke with a meteorologist who confirmed my suspicion that they were flashes of static electricity built up by the whirling of the cone. "Lightning is static electricity," he said!

From this distance, it really was a remarkable spirit. I'm glad I've seen it, but would be content if this turned out to be the most dramatic image of my whole journal....

For a view of some of the effect it up close, see this Blip.