Lake Michigan Plagued by Hot and Wild Weather ... - News Watch

Reports of bizarre Wizard of Oz-like weather over Lake Michigan are touching down all over the Internet.

This past weekend, up to nine twisters were sighted over the lake. But they weren?t traditional tornadoes; they were waterspouts.

These funnel-cloud phenomena can emerge the way traditional tornadoes do, but not always. Unlike a tornado, most waterspouts have a vortex that is created from the ground, or water, up.

A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida. Photograph by Fred K. Smith, National Geographic.

(See more photos of waterspouts and other types of extreme weather.)

Waterspouts are most common in warm tropical ocean water, and have been documented extensively in the Atlantic Ocean, especially around the Florida Keys. But they are not unheard of around the Great Lakes.

There was an ?outbreak? in September of 2011 over Lake Michigan. And two were sighted earlier this year.

The funnels form when large, cool, and moist air masses move in over warmer surface water and winds abruptly change directions. The warming trend that researchers and locals are seeing around the Great Lakes could mean more waterspouts.

(Related: Heat Waves ?Almost Certainly? Due to Global Warming?)

Because of the heat wave that hammered the nation this spring and summer, the Great Lakes are approaching the warmest they?ve been in a century, reports Climate Central.

Monitoring stations in Lake Michigan that normally see average water temps in early July at just over 60 degrees Fahrenheit clocked 80 degrees on July 6, 2012.

(Read about more ?Surprising Effects of the U.S. Drought.?)

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Saturday?s spouts were documented by a storm-chasing freighter captain (See video posted on MSN).

There are two types of waterspouts: tornadic and fair-weather.

Tornadic waterspouts start over land and migrate to water. While fair weather spouts originate over open water. Fair weather waterspouts tend to be smaller, and less powerful, but both can usher in high wind, hail, and lightning.

So, spouts are to be feared, a little. National Weather Service Meteorologist Jim Maczko told reporters in July that waterspouts often reach up to 40 to 60 miles per hour. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns that boats have been overturned and large ships damaged

(More in this dramatic video clip from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

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Source: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/20/lake-michigan-plagued-by-hot-and-wild-weather-waterspouts/

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