TALK OF THE BAY
Waterspout Wisdom by Ann Eichenmuller
SHUTTERSTOCK
T
he headboat was anchored in the Newport News you’d come home and call a friend. That’s as far as it would Middle Ground, eager fishermen with poles out, go. Now everyone carries a smartphone with a camera all the first mate chumming off the stern. He and the the time. Nothing escapes being documented.” captain had their eyes on the northwest sky, focusing That doesn’t mean it’s good idea to chase waterspouts on a build-up of heavy, dark clouds. They watched in to get the perfect shot to share. Waterspouts may be horror as a thin funnel dipped down and touched the photogenic, but they are also dangerous. surface, then began to twist its way toward them. “We’re often talking about tornadic activity associated The captain, with strong normally a gregarious thunderstorms,” Daniels soul, ran to the helm explains. “These without saying a word. supercells can produce He turned over the waterspouts, or they can engine and slammed the form tornadoes over land boat into gear as the that then move across mate scrambled to the the water without losing bow. The young mate got much of their strength.” his hands on the anchor A particularly line and pulled with all devastating example of his might as the boat the latter is the 2016 EF-3 catapulted forward. The tornado that ripped anchor came loose, and through Essex County in as he wrestled it aboard, Virginia, then crossed a he turned to see the mile-and-a-half-wide captain standing whitesection of the faced, hatchet in hand— Rappahannock River ready, if need be, to cut before moving ashore on the line. the Northern Neck, That first mate was leaving widespread my husband, and he damage in its wake. And realized then that any though storm-created weather phenomenon waterspouts that form capable of shaking a over water tend to be seasoned headboat weaker, they are often captain is one worth accompanied by high taking seriously. It’s no winds, rough seas, rain, SWIRLING SEAS wonder waterspouts are the stuff of lightning, and even hail. They can If you see a waterspout, seek safe harbor, legends. Decade ago, sightings were travel at up to 80 miles per hour, and and never try to navigate through it. considered a rarity, but today Facebook have a diameter anywhere from a and Instagram are flooded with photos foot to the size of a football field. of water-borne twisters on the Chesapeake. What has If that isn’t enough, Daniels says it is even possible for changed? According to Channel 6 Richmond’s chief waterspouts to form without any storm at all. “We call meteorologist Zach Daniels, it’s not necessarily the weather. those fair-weather waterspouts, akin to a ‘dust devil’ or a “Twenty years ago, there were very few cell phones. If ‘leafnado.’ Anytime you have cooler air above a warm, you were out on a boat and you saw a waterspout, maybe humid surface, you’ve got an atmosphere that we call
ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 24
June 2021
