I was at work today and glanced out my window and saw this...Pretty exciting, I'd never seen a funnel cloud before. It lasted for several minutes and you could clearly see it rotating. It was much more impressive than the photo seems, but definitely not big enought to be scary. This is just off the coast from the driving range of the Torrey Pines Golf Course in North San Diego (La Jolla).

Matt

matt -

holy #$#%

did you take that ?

if so its a one in a million shot -supercell thunderstorms are incredibly hard to photograph in san diego.

the photo could be worth money - copyright it.

I saw them this morning while driving on 94 west at 9:00 am

very large and just off the coast - 2 or 3 of them moving north east.

we also got hail in san diego today

I was trained by the national weather service to be a spotter years back.

I looked for them for a year in texas and never saw one !

Edited December 13, 201114 yr by trioderob

I didn't have a camera at the office so a co-worker took it with his i-phone. So I guess I had a right to be excited. The guy that took the photo was teasing me a bit about freaking out.

Do you have a contact at the NWS? If you are/were a weather spotter there must be someone you report to right?

Matt

its was years back.

here is place to start : http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/

35 years in san diego and that was the first time I saw a twister.

here is what you look for :

Edited December 13, 201114 yr by trioderob

I'm pretty sure that a "waterspout twister" is not that uncommon here in SD. I've seen them many times and anyone who lives on the coast has seen them. They are often photographed and appear on the local evening news. Still, super awesome sight to see, but I suspect that you're not gonna be able to cash in on your photo as Triode suggests. You might wanna keep your day job at the fish market, Matt.

Real supercell tornados, as your diagram shows, are extemely rare in CA.

MATTY-

these must have been "cold-air funnels" and not tornadic supercells.

still the one I saw was huge and had me wondering as we also had hail.

sure was not like the 4" hail I saw at the OK panhandle...which even had insane positive discharge bolts !

oh well back to working at the fish market..........

Edited December 13, 201114 yr by trioderob

You're the trained weather spotter