The Weather Notebook: Listener Story: Waterspout

Listener Story: Waterspout
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Photo: Dr. Joseph Golden - NOAA Photo Collection

Hi I'm Dave Thurlow for The weather Notebook. I think that one of the great things about weather is its abundance of semi-mysterious phenomena. Stephanie Weston-Katz, who listens to WMWV right here in North Conway, NH, called us recently to report an oddity she described as:

"A very strange occurrence that happened on the pond on Saturday afternoon. It was on a very quiet pond, there was some very swirling activity that started at the edge of the pond and built itself up to about 30 or 40 feet of swirling water that was very misty and it came on very suddenly. And one of the canoes got sucked into it and it was very strong had a strong wind. It lasted for just a few minutes and then just sort of vaporized."

Well it sounds like a water spout, which is more common over land, and when it's over land its called a dust devil. It looks like a little tornado, but it's really created by entirely different processes.

Now, some do get big like the one Stephanie saw, especially on hot sunny days with light winds. On such days air temperatures can differ by 10 or 15 degrees from a field to a pond to woods to parking lot or whatever. This makes for little eddies of warm and cold air that when jostled by even the tiniest breeze, whip up into a swirl for a few seconds or several minutes. The swirling mist in the waterspouts is caused by condensation in the air - not by wind whipped water.

If you see any wacky weather give us a call toll free at 1-888-RAIN-001 and tell us about it. Again, that number is 1-888-RAIN-001.

Thanks to Subaru and the National Science Foundation.