Photo courtesy of Laura Bur There were sightings of what appeared to be a tornado north of Houghton Wednesday as seen in this photo taken in the Taco Bell parking lot. The National Weather Service identified the cloud formation as a Cold Air Funnel, which is relatively harmless.

HOUGHTON — Local social media pages light up Wednesday with photos of what appeared to be funnel cloud north east of Houghton/Hancock, presumably in the Calumet area. While there were no reports of the funnel touching down, it still garnered plenty of attention with several “tornado sightings” reported throughout the afternoon.

While the cloud formation certainly resembled a tornado, the official word from the National Weather service is that is was something much more benign. “We believe this to be a cold air funnel, which can form in showers when the air is very cold aloft,” said Dan Thompson

Science and Operations Officer, at the National Weather Service Marquette Office.

According to information from the National Weather Service, cold air funnels form beneath showers or weak thunderstorms when the air aloft is especially cold. The NWS web page on Cold Air Funnels says they are most common in the fall and spring “when the sun is able to heat up the lower levels of the atmosphere, causing convection to bubble up and form showers, but temperatures around 15,000 to 20,000 feet above the ground are quite cold.”

Thompson said that despite their menacing appearance cold air funnel are usually harmless. “These typically do not touch down and thus pose no danger to the public.” He said that as of Thursday morning the Weather Service had not received reports of any damage near the areas of the sighting. “So it’s highly likely that it did not touch down.” The Weather Service reports that, while rare, there have been occasions where cold air funnels have touched down and caused EF-0 level (winds up to 85 mph) tornado damage.

The good news is that didn’t happen here Wednesday.