Spinning Over Brevard County

Orlando, Fl - Social media is a wonderful tool when it comes to weather monitoring.  I received a heads up on a twitter post by the Brevard County Fire Dept. of something spinning over Brevard county. 

Note the skinny tornado-looking cloud dropping down from the dark cloud in the middle of the picture.  The Brevard County Fire team was doing some training and snapped this picture of their training.  Later they noticed the tornado-like cloud in the distance.  Good news....it was not a tornado or a funnel cloud!

This is the very same rain shower on our FOX35 Guardian Radar.  The shower was non-severe with no lightning or strong winds at the surface or aloft.  There are hundreds of times where a rain shower is singular and has an opportunity to rotate.  Rotation occurs due to our rotating earth and it tries to spin everything on this planet, including you and I.  Very often a singular rain shower and/or storm will rotate and for a few minutes a small vortex will drop out of the cloud as we saw today in Brevard county.  Nothing to worry about...just a reminder that we are on this tiny blue planet that is spinning it's way through space.  And, Thank-You Brevard County Fire and Rescue for what you do!