Erm, two waterspouts hit snow-covered New York state in late January

Jon Erdman
weather.com
Fri, 24 Jan 2014 05:34 UTC

© Aaron Godart via 'vanostrandman'

A waterspout is photographed over Cayuga Lake in central New York on Jan. 21, 2014.

When you hear the term waterspout, you may think of places like the Florida Keys or Gulf Coast in summer. If you live around the Great Lakes, you may have seen one in the fall.

But what about the dead of winter in the northern U.S.? It's not just theoretically possible, it actually happened twice this week.

The photo above was taken in the Finger Lakes region of central New York, specifically Cayuga Lake, on the morning of January 21. The morning low temperature in nearby Ithaca, N.Y. was 5 degrees, so it's conceivable temperatures at the time of the photo were no warmer than the single digits or teens.

A second waterspout was photographed on the southern end of Lake Champlain near Essex, N.Y. on the afternoon of January 22.

The daytime high in nearby Burlington, Vt. was two degrees below zero.

Isn't it too cold for this in January? Doesn't it have to be at least somewhat warm and humid?

The key to waterspouts forming is not simply the surface temperature, but the temperature difference between air near the lake surface and air a few thousand feet above the surface.

When deep, cold air spills over relatively warm bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, or Cayuga Lake, the difference between the cold air aloft and the not as cold air near the lake surface leads to instability, namely, air that wants to rise, forming clouds. This is the basic mechanism for lake-effect rain and snow.

If there's enough low-level spin from a weak wind shift boundary over the body of water, the rising air converging from different directions can tighten the rotation into a waterspout.

In both cases from this past week, it appears the waterspouts formed from within a lake-effect snowband.

Of course, for this to occur in mid-winter, you also need a relatively ice-free body of water, otherwise the flux of relatively warm, humid air from the lake, or river won't occur.

Comment: Indeed, and the lakes are so cold around there, they're freezing over.

Winter waterspouts were also photographed in early January 2012 over the Missouri River in South Dakota. According to photographer Chris Westcott, there were six brief waterspouts at one time during this event.

Most fair-weather, or non-supercell, waterspouts remain over water. Those that do come ashore are usually capable of only minor damage, with maximum wind speeds generally under 70 mph.

It has been estimated between 400 and 500 waterspouts spin near the Florida Keys each year.

Comment: Clearly, warm-cool temperature differences and humidity alone do not explain what causes tornadoes, waterspouts, hurricanes and other air spirals to form.

In his upcoming book on Earth Changes, SOTT.net editor Pierre Lescaudron explains the primary driver behind air spirals:

Air spirals are the manifestation of electric discharges between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface. The image below shows a waterspout and a lightning bolt occurring in the same place at the same time, illustrating how electric potential difference between the clouds at the top of the picture and the ground at the bottom is what powers both the lightning and the tornado.

If air spirals are electrically driven, how then can we explain an increase in their frequency when the Sun's activity has dropped and the atmospheric electric field has weakened? While the overall atmospheric electric field has indeed weakened, another factor must be taken into account. The increase in atmospheric dust concentration reduces the electric conductivity of the atmosphere. Conductivity in the atmosphere is due to the mobility of small ions. When dust is present, these ions attach to the relatively large dust particles and lose mobility, hence the decrease in atmospheric conductivity.

So, on the one hand, reduced solar activity tends to reduce the atmospheric electric field, but on the other, atmospheric dust tends to counteract this trend by increasing atmospheric resistance. The decreased conductivity limits the progressive current leakage that is typical of fair weather, favoring the buildup of local charges that eventually cause discharges like air spirals or lightning. In other words; the net balance of electric potential in the atmosphere can remain the same, but the manner in which it's discharged can change.