Thunderstorms rattle parts of Inland Northwest

Despite reports in the area of a funnel cloud in Spokane Valley, there were none, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Bodner. It was actually a wall cloud, which is “essentially a lowering from the thunderstorm,” Bodner said. The cloud formed when the thunderstorm moved over the boundary of a weather front coming up from the south. “That’s when we had a quick little circulation set up underneath the thunderstorm,” he said. While the cloud did have some rotation to it, “There was never any contact with the ground and the rotation was fairly broad, so there was no funnel cloud reported with it.” The thunderstorms mostly died down by 10 p.m., Bodner said, but some still linger in the Central Panhandle mountains. They are expected to diminish before midnight. The rest of the night is expected to be fairly quiet, though some fog may blanket valleys in the northeast. A sensor on Flowery Trail Road near 49 Degrees North in Pend Oreille County recorded 0.7 inches of rainfall Wednesday.