“I only saw it on television”: the impressive images of a “snorkel” which appeared this Monday in the northern sky

Like an inverted cone emerging from a cloud mass. This is the grandiose (and somewhat frightening) spectacle witnessed by several residents of the district of Cambrai, in the North, this Monday, May 27, reports The voice of the North.

“I saw the sky suddenly darken, as if the storm was going to fall. It was a little after 11:30 a.m. when I saw this huge cloud tube in the sky. Small tornadoes like these , I have only seen it on television in the United States”, Vincent, a Caudrésian, tells our colleagues.

“We really didn’t know what it was, we inquired to find out how tornadoes were formed. There was a mixture of admiration and concern,” confides Clémence, employee of a supermarket in Caudry. .

“Violent whirlwind of air”

The “snorkel”, also known as the cloud funnel, is born from the meeting of a mass of unstable warm air and a mass of cold air, specifies the specialized site Futura Sciences. This encounter can “create a violent swirl of air that stretches the clouds into a funnel shape.”

These “snorkels”, which generally form under cumulus clouds, do not touch the ground. If they eventually do, they become tornadoes. Conversely, if they touch the water, we then speak of a waterspout.