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Twisting and turning in a blue-gray sky, a funnel cloud appeared Friday afternoon near the Great Salt Lake.

It was just one of several that have shown up around northern Utah this month, including three funnel clouds that spiraled over North Salt Lake on Tuesday. But don't worry: They're rarely ever tornado-material.

"They're not the same kind of funnel cloud that would be experienced with a super cell … in the Great Plains," said Glen Merrill, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City. "They're called cold-air funnels. … It's a different animal, a different beast."

They show up when thunderclouds are traveling relatively close to the ground, which northern Utah has been seeing a lot of lately. As air rises and spins into a cloud, sometimes there's enough moisture for the twisting air to condense — and there's the funnel cloud.

"We've seen more recently because we've been in this prolonged cool, wet pattern," among other factors, Merrill said. "It's not too often that we have day after day after day of kind of cool-season" weather, he said.

It's "very rare" for cold-air funnels to touch the ground, and they only last a few minutes, Merrill said. Radars don't even pick them up, he added. When the funnels do touch down, though, they produce winds similar to a weak tornado, according to the weather service.

Even though Tuesday's funnel clouds over North Salt Lake were nowhere near the ground, professional photographer Jeff McGrath said they looked "absolutely huge."

McGrath — who worked at the same college paper, "The Daily Utah Chronicle," as the reporter — was driving north on Beck Street when he saw the funnels forming. He couldn't believe what he was seeing at first, but as the second funnel descended from the clouds, "you could actually see it spinning," he said.

"I was almost directly underneath the third one," McGrath said, and stopped at one point to capture the swirling masses with his smartphone and post the photos on social media. "… It was surreal."

The wet weather continues into the holiday weekend and beyond. Utah is expected to see showers and isolated thunderstorms through the Memorial Day weekend. And even after the mini-vacation ends, northern Utah will see lingering soggy through much of the work week, Merrill said.

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