Waterspout
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A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a nonsupercell tornado over water, and brings the water upward. Also, it is weaker than most of its land counterparts.[1]
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[edit] Formation
Waterspouts exist on a microscale, where their environment is less than two kilometers in width. Their bigger cloud that develops them can be as innocuous as a moderate cumulus, or as great as a supercell. While some waterspouts are strong (tornadic) like their land-based counterparts, most are much weaker and caused by different atmospheric dynamics. They normally develop in moisture-laden environments with little vertical wind shear along lines of convergence, such as land breezes, lake effect bands, lines of frictional convergence from nearby landmasses, or surface troughs. Waterspouts normally develop as their parent clouds are in the process of development, and it is theorized that they spin up as they move up the surface boundary from the horizontal shear near the surface, and then stretch upwards to the cloud once the low level shear vortex aligns with a developing cumulus or thunderstorm. Weak tornadoes, known as landspouts, have been shown to develop in a similar manner.[2]
[edit] Types
[edit] 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.[3]
Fair-weather waterspouts occur in coastal waters and are associated with dark, flat-bottomed, developing convective cumulus towers. They usually rate no higher than F0 on the Fujita scale, generally exhibiting winds of less than 30 m/s (67 mph). They are most frequently seen in tropical and sub-tropical climates, with upwards of 400 per year observed in the Florida Keys. They typically move slowly, if at all, since the cloud they are attached to is horizontally static, being formed by vertical convective action instead of the subduction/adduction interaction between colliding fronts.[4] Fair-weather waterspouts are very similar in both appearance and mechanics to landspouts, and largely behave as such if they move ashore.[4]
[edit] Tornadic
"Tornadic waterspouts", also accurately referred to as "tornadoes over water", are formed from mesocyclonic action in a manner essentially identical to traditional land-based tornadoes, but simply occurring over water. A tornado which travels from land to a body of water would also be considered a tornadic waterspout.
Since the vast majority of mesocyclonic thunderstorms occur in land-locked areas of the United States, true tornadic waterspouts are correspondingly more rare than their fair-weather counterparts. Like all tornadoes, they possess an intensity commensurate to the system which spawned them, but are generally limited in both power and lifespan by the disruptive thermo- and hydrodynamic effects bodies of water tend to have on the complex mesocyclonic action needed to sustain a powerful tornado. Water is also a great deal heavier than the dirt, dust, and debris commonly ingested by a tornado.
Stronger waterspouts are usually quite dangerous, posing threats to ships, planes, and swimmers. It is recommended to keep a considerable distance from these phenomena, and to always be on alert through weather reports. The U.S. National Weather Service will often issue special marine warnings when waterspouts are likely or have been sighted over coastal waters, or tornado warnings when waterspouts can move onshore.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Glossary of Meteorology. Waterspout. Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
- ^ Barry K. Choy and Scott M. Spratt. Using the WSR-88D to Predict East Central Florida Waterspouts. Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
- ^ Gale Schools. Fair weather waterspout. Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
- ^ a b National Weather Service Key West summary of waterspout types: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/eyw/HTML/spoutweb.htm
[edit] External links
- 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 10, 2007.
- http://aoss-research.engin.umich.edu/PlanetaryEnvironmentResearchLaboratory/
