Friday, April 25, 2008

Water spout, roll cloud, or wet microburst?

We are still wondering if last Sunday’s waterspout was a true "waterspout", we have been contacting experts in the field of severe weather and researching more on this event online. After talking to a few severe weather experts, it was pointed out that the "waterspout" appeared to form cloud down.

From Wikipedia.org:

“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.”

So if this "waterspout" formed cloud down, is it actually a waterspout? The National Weather Service in Mt. Holly, NJ mentioned that there was no circulation on Doppler Radar, but there should have been if it was a tornado or waterspout

Some meteorologists/viewers think this was a waterspout, others don't, below you will see pictures can be deceiving.


One of the pictures from Traci Z. sent into www.wgmd.com appears to look more like a roll cloud.

But in another picture Traci Z. sent in, could it be a wet microburst?

Finally, it could still be a waterspout. Without video it is hard to tell!

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