No, that wasn’t a tornado in North Texas on Tuesday. It was a gustnado, NWS says

Not only did North Texas see scattered rain showers Tuesday, but residents of Prosper had a close encounter with a “gustnado” — a weaker distant cousin of a tornado.

A gustnado is a whirlwind that forms near a thunderstorm’s outflow boundaries, said Allison Prater, a metereologist with the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office. They’re not technically classified as tornadoes since they do not connect to any rotation to the cloud base, classifying them more as thunderstorm wind events.

Like a dust devil, which is another smaller whirlwind event, some stronger gustnados could cause damage, but are mainly smaller events, Prater said.

This story was originally published August 10, 2022 at 2:32 PM.

Brayden Garcia

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Brayden Garcia is a service journalism reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is part of a team of local journalists who answer reader questions and write about life in North Texas. Brayden mainly writes about weather and all things Taylor Sheridan-related.