Waterspout
A waterspout is a tornado, over water usually a non-supercell tornado. Waterspouts do not suck up water; the water seen in the main funnel cloud is actually water droplets formed by condensation.[1] It is usually weaker than its land counterparts.[2]
Types
[change | change source]Non-tornadic
[change | change source]Waterspouts that are not come from the turning updraft of a supercell thunderstorm, are known as "nontornadic" or "fair-weather waterspouts", and are by far the most common type.[3]
Fair-weather waterspouts are usually form from tall cumulus clouds with dark, flat-bottoms.[4]
Tornadic
[change | change source]Sometimes a regular tornado, made by a supercell, just happens to be on water. This is called a tornadic waterspout. It could have formed on water or moved there from land. Waterspouts like this can be big and cause a lot of destruction if they hit land. They occur a lot less than non-tornadic waterspouts.[4][5]
Snowspout
[change | change source]A winter waterspout, also known as a snow devil, an icespout, an ice devil, a snonado, or a snowspout, is a very rare meteorological phenomenon in which a vortex from snow develops that looks like a waterspout.[6] One does not know much about this rare happening and there are only six known pictures of this event so far.
There are three main things that produce a winter waterspout:
- Very cold temperatures present over a body of warm water enough to produce fog that looks like steam above the water's surface. This usually needs temperatures of -18 °C or colder if the water temperature is no warmer than 5 °C.
- Lake-effect snows in a small, enclosed or banded formation must be present and going on.
- The wind speed has to be slow, usually less than 5 knots (9.25 km/h).
Related pages
[change | change source]References
[change | change source]- ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica (2009). "Waterspout". Retrieved 28 August 2009.
- ↑ Glossary of Meteorology. Waterspout. Archived 2012-01-18 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
- ↑ Gale Schools. Fair weather waterspout. Archived 2008-04-21 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
- 1 2 "What is a waterspout?". oceanservice.noaa.gov. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 1 December 2025.
- ↑ "Science - Waterspouts". www.weather.gov. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 1 December 2025.
- ↑ "weather.com - Glossary". Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
Other websites
[change | change source]
- British and European Tornado Extremes Archived 2007-08-14 at the Wayback Machine
- A series of pictures Archived 2021-12-12 at the Wayback Machine from the boat Nicorette getting impressively close to the south coast tornadic waterspout.
- USA Today online article on waterspouts Archived 2012-09-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Home video of a waterspout on Long Island Sound on 27 September 2006 Archived 29 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- 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/ Archived 2008-04-08 at the Wayback Machine