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Two buddies down in Louisiana captured a huge waterspout (not the one at left) on video, and chased it down (after Mom reminded them to be careful). They were, sort of. Then they sent their video to CNN, which posted it here:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/ireports/2009/05/19/vo.irpt.waterspout.cnn
Frank Roylance is a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He came to Baltimore from New Bedford, Mass. in 1980 to join the old Evening Sun. He moved to the morning Sun when the papers merged in 1992, and has spent most of his time since covering science, including astronomy and the weather. One of The Baltimore Sun's first online Web logs, the Weather Blog debuted in October 2004. In June 2006 Frank also began writing comments on local weather and stargazing for The Baltimore Sun's print Weather Page.
Comments
Wow, that was amazing. Ok, I'll be Mr. Obvious Question Guy: what's the difference between a waterspout and a tornado? And/or, what the heck is a waterspout?!
That thing sure looked like a tornado to me!
FR: Me too. It's a mushy area of meteorology. Waterspouts (and their rarer cousin, landspouts) form in coastal areas as air begins to rise and rotate beneath developing towers of cumulus clouds. They suck up a bunch of water, but their winds tend to be much weaker than tornadoes. Tornadoes typically form over landlocked regions, in the convection beneath the giant thunderstorms that occur where warm and cold fronts collide. Their wind speeds can be far higher, and they suck up dust, trees, buildings and cars. That said, there are also "tornadic" waterspouts that are simply tornadoes that pass over water. And waterspouts can cause considerable damage when they go ashore. Rule of thumb: it's a lot safer to chase a waterspout than a tornado.
Posted by: Sams | May 20, 2009 9:52 AM