Waterspout

Waterspouts seen from the beach at Kijkduin near The Hague, the Netherlands on August 27, 2006.

A waterspout near Florida.

A waterspout is a funnel cloud over water. It is a nonsupercell tornado over water, and brings the water upward. Also, it is weaker than most of its land counterparts.

Types

Non-tornadic

Waterspouts that are not associated with a rotating updraft of a supercell thunderstorm, are known as "nontornadic" or "fair-weather waterspouts", and are by far the most common type.

Fair-weather waterspouts occur in coastal waters and are associated with dark, flat-bottomed, developing convective cumulus towers.

A pair of waterspouts off the Bahamas

Other pages

Wikimedia Commons has images, video, and/or sound related to:

Waterspout

• Winter waterspout
• Funnel cloud
• Tornado

Other websites

• British and European Tornado Extremes
• A series of pictures from the boat Nicorette getting impressively close to the south coast tornadic waterspout.
• A USA Today online article on waterspouts: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wspouts.htm
• Home video of a waterspout on Long Island Sound on 27 September 2006
• Pictures of cold-core waterspouts over Lake Michigan on 30 September 2006. Archived from the original on March 102007.

http://aoss-research.engin.umich.edu/PlanetaryEnvironmentResearchLaboratory/