May, 28th, 2007 Monday

finally....something interesting happened last friday...stepped out of the office and i saw this.....

this cool pic is taken by my gf along the corridor of my office. this cool thing is a waterspout. NOT a hurricane...
i knew its a waterspout cos i've seen it personally before out in the sea during one of my fishing trips to pulau aur. and the one i witnessed was a twin waterspout. meaning 2 of these mofos spinning next to each other.

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.

a pic from the net showing a waterspout in the water

Waterspouts occur in coastal waters and are associated with usually weak, developing convective towers. They usually are F0 ( F-zero), and generally exhibit winds of less than 30 m/s. Waterspouts exist on the microscale, meaning their environment is less than two kilometers in width. 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.

So in short waterspouts isn't really dangerous as its happens in the seas and doesn't move to land. and this isn;t the first time waterspouts are sighted in local waters.

Actually i saw that when i was walking to the toilet to take a dump. Met a fellow colleague from the store side and this was our conversation....

Smart Alex: whoa!! see see! big tornado! dangerous ahh...*machiam see king kong, godzilla or someother aliens...*

Me: Errr...i suppose it a waterspout. but a rather huge one. not dangerous unless you are in the sea near to it lar..*laughs*

Smart Alex: NO LAH! wat waterspud?!? its a tornado...it can move to our place you know!!! *talk with eyes big big*

Me: HUH?!?!? move to our direction? errr...no lar...wun lah...*roll eyes and proceed to take my dump*

the waterspout died off after 15mins...