Twister spins through Medical Springs

Wendee Morrissey, who lives along Highway 203 northeast of Baker City, photographed this funnel cloud about 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday. (Submitted Photo by Wendee Morrissey)

But it wasn’t a tornado.

Except that’s exactly what it was.

Probably.

The weather phenomenon that prompted John Morrissey to summon Wendee certainly was a funnel cloud, said Paul Flatt, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Boise.

Flatt has looked at some of the photographs Wendee took with her digital camera about 11:15 Wednesday morning from the Morrisseys’ home along Highway 203 near Medical Springs.

What’s not clear is whether the funnel actually touched the ground and thus became, officially speaking, a tornado.

The Morrisseys never saw the base of the funnel, so they’re not sure.

Flatt said meteorologists examined images from the Weather Service’s Doppler radar station at the Boise Airport.

But because that station is more than 100 miles away, with mountains in between, the radar beam can “see” only the upper parts of the storm cell that spawned the funnel cloud, Flatt said.

“We just don’t know if it touched the ground,” he said.

If the storm did in fact produce a tornado, it would rank as “unusual but not unheard of,” Flatt said.

The Weather Service confirms an average of three to five tornadoes each year in Southeastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho, he said.

Almost all of those are rated EF-O — the weakest category of tornado.

Wendee Morrissey estimated the funnel cloud was about eight miles away and due north from her home, near Frazier Mountain.

The sun was actually shining on the couple as they watched the cloud for what Wendee figured was at least three minutes.

“It was very warm and humid, “ she said. “Kind of eerie.”

The funnel, which was moving east, had already dropped from the body of the storm when her husband noticed it.

They watched the cloud as it gradually shortened, and then retracted into the storm cell.

Wendee took about 20 photographs during the sequence.

Based on those photographs, Flatt figures the funnel cloud — or tornado — was perhaps 20 to 30 feet across.

That’s considerably narrower than the more powerful tornadoes typical in the Midwest.