APOD: A Waterspout in Florida (2020 May 17)

[APOD Robot]

A Waterspout in Florida

Explanation: What's happening over the water? Pictured here is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout, a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning columns of rising moist air that typically form over warm water. Waterspouts can be as dangerous as tornadoes and can feature wind speeds over 200 kilometers per hour. Some waterspouts form away from thunderstorms and even during relatively fair weather. Waterspouts may be relatively transparent and initially visible only by an unusual pattern they create on the water. The featured image was taken in 2013 July near Tampa Bay, Florida. The Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida is arguably the most active area in the world for waterspouts, with hundreds forming each year.

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[M.T.]

Ever since I discovered APOD, back in the old millennium, the astronomical picture of the day has been the first page I visit every day when I...
connected to the internet (imagine the noise of the 56k modem establishing the connection),
turned on my PC (no sound, the ADSL had replaced the 56k),
woke up and looked at my smartphone (now the sound is that of me yawning because I'm still sleepy)

I've been following APOD for twenty years, but now I see that the frequency of appearance of old pictures' replica is steadily increasing (even pictures like this one, that may be interesting but little have to do with astronomy) and it makes me sad:
could it be that we ran out of pictures of the cosmos?
Is the cosmos really such a small place that every object in it has already been pictured and showed here?

[WWW]

With the last paragraph referencing the Atlantic Ocean as being the most active area in the world for waterspouts you would think that at the very least they'd use a picture of a waterspout that actually was over the Atlantic Ocean, (Tampa Bay - not so close).

[DL MARTIN]

I think from time to time the APOD editors are trying to coach the viewer to thinking of planet Earth as part of the cosmos rather than from a traditional 'we-vs-they' perspective. Thus things like waterspouts are as valid a planetary observation as Jupiter's Red Spot.

[heehaw]

Hey, M.T., are you still what you were twenty years ago? I love APOD just as it is!
And I really like today's thank you!

[NHcycler]

I've been following APOD for twenty years, but now I see that the frequency of appearance of old pictures' replica is steadily increasing (even pictures like this one, that may be interesting but little have to do with astronomy) and it makes me sad:

Nowadays, every Sunday is a repeat of a former APOD. The editors deserve a day off!

If the original, or a later repeat, is recent enough, there will be a different discussion of said photo/caption. So one can argue that there are no truly repeated APODs within the last 7 or 8 years. (The older ones don't have discussions.)

I suspect that there are more than a few APOD enthusiasts who are younger than 20. Even if they looked back through the Archive, there are so many different photos that any one can easily be missed.

[De58te]

@ WWW, I don't think that line meant to imply that Tampa Bay was on the Atlantic Ocean. It was just stating a textual fact. I would hazard a guess that if the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida was the most active area for waterspouts, then the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa Bay might by it's not being that far away climate wise, might be the 2nd most active place for waterspouts.

[NCTom]

This is a great photo and nice from a distance. Watching the one off the coast of North Carolina, USAmerica several years ago move on shore and become a weak tornado was not such a pretty sight. It became a rather wide and ugly column of sand and debris tearing up trees and knocking houses off their foundations.

Not only do we have photo repeats on weekends, we might also remember NASA as a provider for many of our photos stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Everything we do in space has to go through our atmosphere first.

[DozyBee]

With all due respect to this awesome page and to the awesome editors of it, I do agree that showing Earth-bound weather related phenomena is a bit of a let-down. Oh well, the world still spins onward Keep rocking on, APOD!

[neufer]

With the last paragraph referencing the Atlantic Ocean as being the most active area in the world for waterspouts you would think that at the very least they'd use a picture of a waterspout that actually was over the Atlantic Ocean, (Tampa Bay - not so close).

@ WWW, I don't think that line meant to imply that Tampa Bay was on the Atlantic Ocean. It was just stating a textual fact. I would hazard a guess that if the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida was the most active area for waterspouts, then the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa Bay might by it's not being that far away climate wise, might be the 2nd most active place for waterspouts.

The Gulf of Mexico off the Florida Keys is the most active area for waterspouts. Tampa Bay has the greatest number of damaging waterspouts, probably because the shores of the Bay are so built up.

Where waterspouts are most likely
By Jack Williams of USA TODAY

<<The Florida Keys "are the greatest, natural vortex lab in the world," says Joseph Golden, a senior National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who has studied waterspouts extensively. "Waterspouts probably occur more frequently in the Florida Keys than anywhere in the world."

Waters around the Keys, especially from Marathon past Key West on westward to the Dry Tortugas, probably see 400 or 500 waterspouts a year. Since they are so common, most go unreported unless they cause damage.

Golden suspects so many waterspouts hit the Florida Keys because the weather and geography supply two necessary ingredients.

First, the islands and the shallow water along them help heat the air. During the summer, waterspout season, the air is extremely humid with temperatures in the mid-80s into the low 90s. The heat causes the air to rise. As it rises, the air's humidity condenses into the tiny water droplets that make up clouds.

As water vapor condenses, it releases more heat that makes the air rise even faster. Rising air currents are needed for waterspout formation.

The second important waterspout ingredient in the Keys seems to be the regular east or northeast "trade winds" that blow right down the islands. These winds help line up the clouds. Lines of clouds encourage waterspouts. Exactly how is one of the questions researchers are trying to answer.

Clouds that spawn waterspouts in the Keys are generally from around to 18,000 to 22,000 feet high. Golden says, waterspouts are likely to form when the clouds are growing upwards.

In the Keys, waterspouts are most likely to form between 4 and 7 p.m. with a secondary maximum from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. A few waterspouts form around sunrise.

After the Florida Keys, the next most active U.S. waterspout area is the southeast Florida Coast from around Stuart south to Homestead. Tampa Bay has the greatest number of damaging waterspouts, probably because the shores of the Bay are so built up.

Places around the Gulf of Mexico along with the Atlantic Coast northward to Chesapeake Bay are also likely to see waterspouts. Waterspouts have been reported on the West Coast from Tatoosh Island, Wash., south to San Diego, but they tend to be weak and short lived. Waterspouts also skip across the Great Lakes and Utah's Great Salt Lake from time to time.>>

[orin stepanek]

Wet and wild Man!

[Yes]

With the last paragraph referencing the Atlantic Ocean as being the most active area in the world for waterspouts you would think that at the very least they'd use a picture of a waterspout that actually was over the Atlantic Ocean, (Tampa Bay - not so close).

@ WWW, I don't think that line meant to imply that Tampa Bay was on the Atlantic Ocean. It was just stating a textual fact. I would hazard a guess that if the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida was the most active area for waterspouts, then the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa Bay might by it's not being that far away climate wise, might be the 2nd most active place for waterspouts.

The Gulf of Mexico off the Florida Keys is the most active area for waterspouts. Tampa Bay has the greatest number of damaging waterspouts, probably because the shores of the Bay are so built up.

Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico are part of the Atlantic Ocean as is the Mediterranean Sea and the Adriatic Sea.

[Dofins]

I agree with others who have said that a weather phenomenon is not a topic of astronomy. Years ago I submitted a photo of an analemmatic sundial that I constructed. It was rejected by the editors of APOD. You would think that a sundial has much more to do with astronomy than a waterspout.

[Boomer12k]

Look them up on youtube...

Really nice image.

:---[===] *

[GeoXXXXX]

I agree with others who have said that a weather phenomenon is not a topic of astronomy. Years ago I submitted a photo of an analemmatic sundial that I constructed. It was rejected by the editors of APOD. You would think that a sundial has much more to do with astronomy than a waterspout.

Don’t take it personally I’m sure they get a ton of submissions and they have featured sundails in the past.
I have to disagree about the waterspout or any Earth weather is not apropros to Astronomy. From the gas giants to Mars and Venus all have weather to a great degree like Earth. Studying weather on Earth helps us understand their weather better.

Earth dust devil...

Mars dust devil...

Martian cyclone...


Eric

[johnnydeep]

I agree with others who have said that a weather phenomenon is not a topic of astronomy. Years ago I submitted a photo of an analemmatic sundial that I constructed. It was rejected by the editors of APOD. You would think that a sundial has much more to do with astronomy than a waterspout.

Would you consider an image of a dust devil taken by the Curiosity rover on Mars a topic of astronomy? How about a cloud formation on Jupiter? I think you can see where I'm going here

As for your sundial photo, perhaps it was rejected for other reasons?

[ta152h0]

Some water spouts are called hurricanes. pass the ice cold one.

[BillBixby]

Otto Posterman's third waterspouts link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN7ug1zoWWE which is the third link entitled waterspouts, coming just after the word Some... I don’t recall seeing or clicking on that in the past. From the calm line at the beginning of “it ain’t going to hurt us” to the utter panic being expressed near the end... I have done some stupid things for fun and excitement but never documented them as these people did. Arty’s comment of “very interesting” from the old Laugh-In show fits nicely here.

[neufer]

A dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively short-lived whirlwind, ranging from small (half a metre wide and a few metres tall) to large (more than 10 metres wide and more than 1000 metres tall). The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless. They are comparable to tornadoes in that both are a weather phenomenon involving a vertically oriented rotating column of wind. Most tornadoes are associated with a larger parent circulation, the mesocyclone on the back of a supercell thunderstorm. Dust devils form as a swirling updraft under sunny conditions during fair weather, rarely coming close to the intensity of a tornado.

A tornado/twister/whirlwind is "a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud". For a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must be in contact with both the ground and the cloud base.

A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water. Some are connected to a cumulus congestus cloud, some to a cumuliform cloud and some to a cumulonimbus cloud. In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water. While it is often weaker than most of its land counterparts, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur.

While waterspouts form mostly in the tropics and subtropical areas, other areas also report waterspouts, including Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Great Lakes, Antarctica and on rare occasions, the Great Salt Lake. Although rare, waterspouts have been observed in connection with lake-effect snow precipitation bands.

Waterspouts exist on a microscale, where their environment is less than two kilometers in width. The cloud from which they develop can be as innocuous as a moderate cumulus, or as great as a supercell. While some waterspouts are strong and tornadic in nature, most are much weaker and caused by different atmospheric dynamics. They normally develop in moisture-laden environments as their parent clouds are in the process of development, and it is theorized they spin 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 cloud or thunderstorm. Some weak tornadoes, known as landspouts, have been shown to develop in a similar manner.

A tropical cyclone/hurricane/typhoon is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain or squalls.