This image was removed due to legal reasons.

A cloud spotted in the Cincinatti area has made the news in the area, as locals couldn't stop talking about it on social media, and experts struggled to explain it.


Photos of the cloud in question make it sort of look like a tornado funnel that froze in place and then got cut off halfway to the ground.


Local TV station WCPO sent a photo of the cloud to the National Weather Service, whose staffers suggested, and then ruled out, several different types of clouds. A cold air funnel, a virga and a scud cloud were among the proposed types of clouds discussed; the WCPO story posted to Facebook also suggested that it could be a black hole, or a portal to another dimension. Jonathan Guseman, a NWS employee from Lubbock, Texas, e-mailed the station to proclaim the futility of attempting to classify clouds (but he thinks it's a scud cloud).

"We certainly don't have a distinct classification for every single type of cloud that can exist," he wrote to WCPO.

The main reaction from Ohioans who spotted the strange cloud seemed to boil down to remarking on its very existence.



Others on both Facebook and Twitter seemed concerned about the cloud's origins, whether they were sinister or divine.


This image was removed due to legal reasons.

This image was removed due to legal reasons.


Unlike the last big weird cloud story, no one mistook this one for a city in the sky. It's just a weird cloud, man. Don't try to explain it. Don't try to understand it. Just … weird cloud. Weird cloud.