On Thursday, a large funnel-shaped cloud that appeared at the Walt Disney World in the state of Florida, United States caused a commotion among visitors. In a now viral video, on social media, several people mistook the cloud formation as a tornado. The video captured by one of the visitors showed the fairly unusual and ominous cloud formation looming over one of the four theme parks at the Florida resort named Epcot.
However, US National Weather Service (NWS) also took to Twitter to inform the people that could be a “funnel cloud”. The NWS also told the local media, “Looks like it could be a funnel cloud, hard to tell if there is any rotation in the video though.” The funnel cloud did not damage the theme park or injure its visitors, it caused quite a commotion.
On the other hand, Jonathan Kegges, a meteorologist working for the local media that the cloud formation could also be a scud cloud which is more jagged and whispy looking than a funnel cloud. “This could just be a scud cloud, which is a jagged cloud that gets sucked into the updraft of a thunderstorm,” said Kegges. He added, “Often times, scud are incorrectly identified as funnel clouds or tornadoes.”
Notably, both a scud and funnel cloud can turn into tornadoes but in this case, it did not, explained the meteorologist.
(with inputs from agencies)
