Some North Texans who were hoping for some rain this week got what they wished for, plus something extra.
Video taken in the Prosper area Tuesday afternoon and shared on Twitter showed what appeared to be a funnel descending from dark storm clouds -- a mix between a tornado, landspout and dust devil.
The sight prompted The National Weather Service's Fort Worth office to chime in, clarifying that the swirling funnel object was in fact a gustnado.
"The environment today is NOT supportive of tornadoes," the NWS wrote in a reply to the video. "This video is of a gustnado; a weak distant cousin of an actual tornado."
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The Weather Service says the weather phenomenon can form along the winds in front of an incoming storm. Lightweight objects may be moved around in the whirlwind, much like a large dust devil.
"At first we thought it could be a landspout (it has the look of one), but because of the speed of movement, and its location lines up along the moving gust front on radar, we felt more confident calling it a gustnado," NWS added.
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NBC 5 Meteorologist Grant Johnston had another suggestion, saying the observation is subjective.
"Typically a gustnado happens so fast, it's more or less of a gust of wind that just circulates violently into a brief tornado," he said on NBC 5 Today. "This may be, technically, an EF-0 tornado. But it's very weak and on the lower end of the scale."
"It's a bit subjective as far as what we classify it as," he said.
There were no reports of damage.
