Sometimes the line between tornado and “not tornado” is a fuzzy one. Here, a big, messy supercell was passing over Brownwood, with baseball-sized hail and separate measured gusts of 65 and 64 knots, 13 minutes apart. While trying to stay ahead of the gnarly storm, which seemed increasingly outflow-dominant, I made a wrong turn southeast instead of east in town. Though frustrating in the moment, that worked out well. Trying to pop out of town and gain a view, from within rear-flank outflow, I looked back at left rear and spotted this stunning, scuddy, yet highly suspicious feature, which was slowly but definitely rotating, in the “right” spot (a low-level mesocyclone) and in an active tornado warning. How slowly is too slowly? Either this was a broad, weak tornado, or a rotating, “ground scraping” and cone-shaped wall cloud whose bottom was not visible below the low ridge. Within five minutes, outflow undercut the formation, and it lost rotation while dissipating. Later consultation with the San Angelo NWS’ warning-coordination meteorologist determined that there was no damage associated with this feature. Because of that, the lack of stronger rotation and a large shadow of doubt, we agreed it should not get logged as a tornado. Even though that meant the warning didn’t technically verify, honesty and integrity with available evidence were more important.
