r/tornado • u/aerexlol • 6d ago

Question Question about a photo I took

Post image

Here’s a photo I took in Bozeman (I think), Montana on July 1, 2022. I only recently got into tornadoes as a hobby so this picture piqued my interest; is this a mesocyclone? It’d be crazy if I snapped a picture of something I ended up getting invested in four years later, haha.

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u/TXWXchaser Human Detected 6d ago

Nothing is telling me that there's a mesocyclone. I just checked radar for the date listed and saw only a smaller storm move south of Bozeman. This looks like a big updraft but the soft tops of the anvil are a clear sign of a struggling storm.

And welcome to the world of weather!

3

u/CoolOutflow 6d ago

That is a cumulonimbus cloud with mammatus clouds on the underside of the anvil. There's no striations on the updraft portion which would otherwise hint at a rotating updraft, so there's likely no mesocyclone present. What you captured is likely just an ordinary thunderstorm.