water spout or tornado??

[becauseisaidso13]

We were on the dec 24th new years cruise on the Pearl last week and soon after we left Grand Cayman, The captain announced that there was a tornado over the island. There was a maddish to the port side of the ship by both passengers and crew to see the tornado....although, I am shocked that after eating all of that food, we were still able to move that fast...

 

Does anyone have further info about the tornado? did it touch down on land?? there was a rainbow and a funnel cloud....that seems like an oxymoron!!!!!

 

Is a tornado common while cruising??

[nikimouse]

wow what a cool thing to see! hope it didnt cause any damage though :eek:

[camz]

Wow with all the sights I have seen from my Aft facing balcony cabins, I have never seen this! I am not sure if I would be amazed or scared to death.

[becauseisaidso13]

i did manage to video it , although by the time i figured out which side was the port side and ran with camera in hand, I missed most of it...my daughter --who was playing bingo at the time had an amazing view of it and said that it was "HUGE".... and she could still see land, so we wondered if it hit land?????? and yes-they did stop bingo for the tornado viewing!!!!!!!!

[Sauer-kraut]

I have seen water spouts at sea, in fact on my first cruise I saw 2, they do look like tornadoes but since being out to sea there was nothing for them to destroy.

[Kamloops50]

A tornado over water either an ocean or a lake , are considered Water Spouts.

The difference between a Hurricane or Typhoon is just location in the world.

[sdmike]

Tornadic water spouts tend to be less destructive because they normally don't have all the projectiles in them (boards, trees, cars, cows) but can pick up rocks, sea life, etc.. I've seen videos of boats getting hit and other than wind damage coming out ok. They can, however, be just as dangerous as their tornado cousin especially if they hit the beach, becoming a tornado. However, most water spouts are "non-tornadic", with low speed rotation as they drop from low clouds. We get these off the coast of San Diego on occasion, and they get hundreds of them per year in the Florida Keys.

[nikimouse]

I didnt know that, learn something new every day, thanks :)

water spout does make it sound less dangerous and big though. does water get like sucked into it and spout out? sorry if that sounds dumb :o

[sdmike]

I didnt know that, learn something new every day, thanks :)

water spout does make it sound less dangerous and big though. does water get like sucked into it and spout out? sorry if that sounds dumb :o

 

Yep, and what's funny about them is once the funnel lifts off the water and breaks the "suction", the water it picked up drops down in a torrent. I understand its pretty wild.

 

:)

[crew mom]

Photo of a waterspout taken from either the Norway or from the tug that took her to Bremerhaven after the boiler explosion. I think that tornadoes only form over land and waterspouts are the same as tornadoes but they form over water.

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2899643670041251019FnvRlN

[BadKitteh]

I was on a small party boat fishing when I was 12 and we had a water spout right behind the boat. That was intense!

[jdvmd]

We were at sea once and there were two water spouts nearby that were separate and then joined and separated again. It is a bit unnerving. Lots of videos on you tube.