Port Charlotte's waterspout

Wasn't it odd that this waterspout made landfall as a tornado? F(0) I believe, but still, how common is this weather scenario? If anyone could provide a link for more ifo, I would appreciate it.

www.nbc-2.com...

I'd very much appreciate it too, if someone could provide a link.

was it a waterspout that came ashore in Miami a few years back or just a tornado..I don't remember, not sure how common this is, as in coming ashore as tornado, but waterspouts themself are fairly common.

interesting pics and info in the links
www.mthurricane.com...

www.flatrock.org.nz...

Meterologically, the only difference between a waterspout and a tornado is location. As soon as a funnel cloud reaches the earth it is called a tornado. As soon as a funnel cloud reaches the water it is called a waterspout. A waterspout that moves on to land is then called a tornado.

I know it's splitting hairs with nomenclature, but these are the "official" terms we used for weather observations when I was an Air Force weather observer.


edited for spelling...... Like all my other posts, lol. Someday I will

[edit on 26-6-2006 by rollinoffset]

but the question would be how often do waterspouts actually
become tornados?

Let me check some old sources and maybe I can get some statistics. Might take me a while but I'll post whatever I can find.

O.k. Here's what I've got from a quick search. This is data from a study done in Japan concerning their tornadic activity.

ams.allenpress.com...(1997)010%3C1730:ASSOTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2#i1520-0442-10-7-1730-f05
Among the tornadoes, 104 tornadoes (about 15% of all tornadoes) are of waterspout origin. Shimada (1967) analyzed 76 tornadoes between 1955 and 1964, and found that 41 tornadoes (53%) were of waterspout origin.

Golden studied waterspouts around the Florida Keys and found that the months of high frequency of waterspouts were August, June, and July, which is different from the present result. He also found that the monthly frequencies of waterspout days are larger when the sea surface temperatures are higher and that convective rainfall had a good correlation with waterspout occurrence

Golden, J. H., 1973: Some statistical aspects of waterspouts formation. Weatherwise, 26, 108–117.

Scroll waaaay down in the article to find this, lol.

I know this isn't a large amount of data, but it's enough to show that waterspouts to tornado conversions are relatively common. That is at least in island or peninsular areas. It's enough for me to rule out intentional weather modification anyway.

If anyone is interested, I'll keep searching.

I'm very interested in learning more. Thanks for the article it was informative, but there really wasn't much to it like you said.

Here's the link to an article of J.H. Golden's entitled "An Assessment of Waterspout Frequencies along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts"

ams.allenpress.com...(1977)016%3C0231:AAOWFA%3E2.0.CO%3B2

It dosn't discuss the statistical data on waterspouts becoming tornados, but it talks about everything else w.s. related. The article does mention Florida as being the Title Holder for w.s activity, though.

I don't know that anyone has tracked w.s.'s becoming tornados. I would think there might be a shortage of observational data to support such a study. The best method would be to check every tornado report in an area and see if the time, movement, and location data corespondes with any ws reports for that area.
Hope this helps.