THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 27, 1995 TAG: 9507270377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OREGON INLET LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
A towering waterspout skipped around this Outer Banks inlet Wednesday morning, forcing fishing boats to delay their trips to sea.
Watermen and recreational boaters watched as the spinning gray funnel seemed to stretch from the water to dark clouds overhead.
Although the National Weather Service issued a special marine warning about the incident at 8:05 a.m., some charter boats were stalled in the inlet, waiting for the spout to pass. Coast Guard officials and local fishermen said the whirlwind did not create any problems.
``It was a good-sized one - the biggest we've seen here this summer. It lasted about 15, 20 minutes at least,'' said Oregon Inlet Fishing Center manager Satch Smith, who has witnessed a half-dozen waterspouts from his marina since May.
``It was right back of what we call Pelican Island. The boats couldn't get out of the channel because of it. Everyone was watching,'' Smith said. ``They all know to steer clear of those spouts.''
Waterspouts are fairly common along North Carolina's coast, with a dozen or more reported each summer, National Weather Service meteorologist Cory Gates said from his Newport office Wednesday. They occur over warm waters, in light winds, and usually last 15 to 20 minutes, at most. About 90 percent of the waterspouts that spring up off the Tar Heel State's shores are ``pretty much uneventful,'' Gates said.
``But if you're in a boat out there, close to one, you better put down that throttle and get out of the way as fast as possible,'' the meteorologist advised.
``Waterspouts are a lot different from tornadoes - and much weaker - although they look a lot alike,'' said Gates. ``The base cloud in a tornado rotates. With a waterspout, there is no rotation of the cloud. It's just a funnel that drops out from the clouds, with winds sometimes getting to 50 miles an hour or more directly below the spout.
``More like a dust devil that occurs over the water.''
Waterspouts form when growing cumulus clouds congregate over light winds low in the atmosphere - usually southeast winds, Gates said. Wind directions change, however, with the height in the atmosphere, becoming northwest at higher levels. Conflicting wind directions create a spinning effect beneath the clouds, with waterspouts usually turning in a counter-clockwise direction.
``As the cloud grows, that updraft acquires rotation in the varying wind directions,'' Gates explained. by CNB