Waterspouts Possible Over Lake Michigan Today
If I remember correctly, cold weather funnels / waterspouts usually form just after a frontal passage when the airmass aloft is relatively cool compared to the airmass at the surface. The sky clears after the frontal passage, leading to sunny weather that heats the air to its greatest potential temperature and evaporates water. Showers and isolated thunderstorms form. Over water, where friction is less, the vertical thermal gradient forces air upward while the gradient between air and land produces some horizontal motion. If those two motions continue, the Coriolis, I think, produces enough deflection for the necessary spin to make the waterspout.
The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Chicago thinks the right conditions might fall in place today. So keep watching the Lake. On the other hand, the showers are going to make the viewing tricky from the John Hancock.
ESA(20030927.1)
If I remember correctly, cold weather funnels / waterspouts usually form just after a frontal passage when the airmass aloft is relatively cool compared to the airmass at the surface. The sky clears after the frontal passage, leading to sunny weather that heats the air to its greatest potential temperature and evaporates water. Showers and isolated thunderstorms form. Over water, where friction is less, the vertical thermal gradient forces air upward while the gradient between air and land produces some horizontal motion. If those two motions continue, the Coriolis, I think, produces enough deflection for the necessary spin to make the waterspout.
The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Chicago thinks the right conditions might fall in place today. So keep watching the Lake. On the other hand, the showers are going to make the viewing tricky from the John Hancock.
ESA(20030927.1)
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