Almost in a twist, but not quite!
We have been seeing lots of photographs on social media this afternoon of the ‘funnel cloud’, which resembles a ‘twister’, and is above Darlington at the moment.
A funnel cloud is a cone-shaped cloud which extends from the base of a cloud towards the ground without actually reaching the surface. In the UK they often look like thin dangling bits of rope, hanging from the cloud above.
A funnel cloud does not reach the ground, but at the point it reaches land it becomes a tornado, or if it reaches a body of water it becomes a waterspout.
A parent has kindly sent in this photo, showing the funnel cloud behind our school – although it is a few miles away across town, it still looks quite big in the background!
