Water Spout off Sydney Northern beaches

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys

Travelling home on the train, came out of Wynyard and going across the Harbour Bridge, looking across to the East I saw a funnel extending down from a cloud into what must've been the ocean.

Since we don't have tornados here, I'm guessing it was a water spout.

Did anyone else see it?

Would've loved to have taken a photo, it looked spectacular and was still going when I lost sight of it at North Sydney.

[iceman (Mike)]

This google search reveals some previous water spouts off Sydney:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=water+spout+sydney

The youtube video is quite cool.

[sheeny (Al)]

Cool!

BTW we do have tornados here, and the BOM talks about them on their website. For some bizarre reason the media doesn't like to mention them - they call them "mini-cyclones" and other silly names...

Al.

[madtuna (Steve)]

Was cruising through the Bahamas when one popped up about 1/2 a km off the ship.
The ship was 14 stories high and the spout dwarfed it.
There must have been 800 tourist on the ship with atleast 1000 cameras and video recorders but everyone was so dumb struck at the sight (myself included) thay only about 10 people managed to film it

[Kevnool (Kev)]

That would of been a great and rare sight to see .....no camera with you mike...cheers Kev.

[leinad (Dan)]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23989066-2,00.html

[Ric]

It's always the way isn't it, Murphy's law in action.

If something spectacular is going to happen, then that will be the day you leave your camera at home.

Cheers

[alan meehan (Alan)]

`hi mike it just pays to have a camera at all times ,must have been good to see it

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Nature is awesome.
Growing up, we lived on a hill overlooking Bramble Bay and Moreton Bay we were fortunate enough to see the occasional water spout.
The most spectacular was the time when there were 3 of them at once.
Being home alone that afternoon I had to cross the road and point them out to a neighbour, just so I could say to Mum, "Just ask Mr Ellidge across the road, he saw it too."

[MrB (Simon)]

Yes Tornado's do exist in Australia, they're just not as big as those in the US so get labelled 'mini-tornadoes'.
I recall seeing an excellent report on possibly the largest recorded tornado in Australia(300M wide) on either Rob McNaught's or Gordon Garradd's website.
* Rob McNaught.. here's the link

I have seen one descend maybe 1/4 way down from a cloud but not touch down. There was a similar one to that I saw shown on the news here a few years ago, as well as a pretty speccy 'water spout'.
I also live in what has been dubbed Tornado Alley south of Perth.

I consider a waterspout to be a tornado, it's just that it occur's over water instead of land.
The link to the news story above includes a few quotes from a BOM weather forcaster, one of which:
""(Spouts) are like the willy-willy or dust devils you see in country areas but because they form over water, what you're seeing is actual sea water being drawn up within the very strong wind funnel."

However, in the photo, the spout clearly extends from a cloud to the sea, hard to see if the cloud is part of a storm cell but I'm guessing it is, therefore it's a tornado.
I have seen plenty of 'willy-willy's and dust devils (even had a large one pass over me on a school trip to the Pilbara), and there is often never a cloud in sight!

So to me, if there are no storms or no connection to a storm-cloud, it's a willy willy over land, a water spout over sea. If there is a connection to a cloud it's a tornado, no matter how slender.

Edit: added link.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

The top 3 countries for tornados are
1.US
2.Australia
3.UK

Because Australia is sparsely populated, we just don't hear about every tornado that touches the ground.

It must have been in the 1970's when a twister went through Margate, on the Redcliffe Peninsula, in Queensland, taking the roof of the local Woolies shopping centre with it.
Found a link.
http://www.ema.gov.au/ema/emadisaste...4?OpenDocument

[bones]

I always find them fascinating. The best one I ever saw was in 1987. A few of us were having an early morning surf off Wamberal Beach (Central Coast) and there was one a few km out to sea touching down on the ocean from a bit of a front out there. Yeah, I wish I had a camera that day too.

[fringe_dweller]

when i was a lad workin as a jackoroo on stations near ilfracombe cen. qld rolling downs, i had to rode out 15 or more klm's to a remote paddock for some reason one day, and the most eerie scenario unfolded before me. I could see in the distance a humungous dust devil, but unlike any i have seen before or since, i would definitely call it a tornado, as it went way up into the sky, and seemed to have an enormous girth from where i stood, adding to surrealness, i was at a small dam, which had an ancient windmill, one of the biggest and strongest looking ive ever seen, industrial scale size, and it had been tied neatly in a granny knot up and under itself. obviously by a tornado like the one i was looking at in distance, at some time, then on top of that the horse started acting spooked out, and i nearly lost him as i was on foot by then, and thats when i noticed the large family of big black tusked to the gills boars 30 metres away, i was happy to get out of there!

[fringe_dweller]

love that 2001 one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhJS49_W6b4

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow that's a monster!

[Ian Robinson]

We do have tornadoes here in Australia, only most of Australia is so sparcely populated that they do little harm to property and rarely involve people.

I am not talking about dust devils and willywillys , I am talking about F1 - F3 or F4 Tornadoes. I saw one once not long after Cyclone John near Port Hedland , it was huge , so did the local cops who stopped traffic from going down the highway until it passed or dissipated.

I saw the water spout off Stockton (a few years ago).

And about 10 years ago I watched as 4 slender funnel clouds decended from a rotating cloud that was stationary overtop of the old State Dockyard at Carrington Basin on hot clalm steamy summer afternoon while I was fishing for livebait at the old Fisherman's Coop Wharf. They lasted ages and never quite reached the ground , as far as I know , I chickened out , released the livebaits (yellowtails) , packed up and left immediate area as I expected a full fledged tornado to form and wanted no part of it except from a distance.

Just about every summer when I was a kid (1960s) we had willywillys in the Mayfield West Primary School back play ground , and in the big paddock near The Bush off Woodstock and Bull Streets in Mayfield.

We also regularly had big dustdevils form on a regular basis at the Newcastle Steelworks when I worked there (in the 1970s to the mid 1980s, and in the 1990s), we had a tornado (F1 or F2) on site that hit the Bar Mill in 1994, took some sheets off the roof and walls , was very scarey came with a 4 oclock special..

We can expect more as the local climate changes.


The tornadoes that we hear about in the USA are more dangerous only because the area of the USA where they are frequent is densely populated and building codes are not as good there as here.

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

love that 2001 one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhJS49_W6b4

I remember seeing similar footage on Ten when they used to broadcast the Volvo yacht race, was the same year that a yacht sank because they hit a shipping container or a whale!
Hope they show this years event.

[§AB]

Originally Posted by iceman

Hi guys


Since we don't have tornados here, I'm guessing it was a water spout.

A waterspout is a tornado......that happens to be over water instead of land.