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BIG SKY COUNTRY — There's no doubt you've seen more than a few storms this past winter. It seemed like a weekly occurrence when dark clouds would clamber over the mountains and dump precipitation on the valley below.
But have you ever seen anything like the cloud in this video?
I'm no meteorologist, so I have no business trying to explain what's going on here. But I'll be darned if it doesn't look like a tornado touching down on a mountain peak.
The caption of the May 9 video says the family was inside their home in Saint Ignatius, in western Montana, as a thunderstorm passed over the Mission Mountain Range, when they noticed the funnel cloud.
"As we watched, snow was being pulled up into the funnel from the mountaintop. The funnel was on the mountaintop for about 8 minutes and clearly advanced eastward before it finally began to dissipate from the bottom up," the caption states. "This was an amazing sight, and I was lucky to capture video of the twister while it was on the mountaintop!"
So there you have it. A twister apparently climbed a Montana mountain. Nature is a strange and beautiful thing.
