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. It is usually weaker than its land counterparts.Glossary of Meteorology. Waterspout.  Retrieved on 2006-10-25.

 Types 
 Non-tornadic 
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.Gale Schools. Fair weather waterspout.  Retrieved on 2006-10-25.

Fair-weather waterspouts are usually form from tall cumulus clouds with dark, flat-bottoms.


Tornadic
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.

Snowspout
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.  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
 Winter waterspout
 Funnel cloud
 Tornado

 References 

 Other websites 

 British and European Tornado Extremes 
 A series of pictures  from the boat Nicorette getting impressively close to the south coast tornadic waterspout.
 USA Today online article on waterspouts 
 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/ 

Category:Weather