waterspot
© Darshan Khatau
Malabar Hill resident Darshan Khatau was pleasantly surprised to spot a rare weather phenomenon on Monday morning. He saw a waterspout or water-tornado — a rotating vertical column or funnel shaped cloud formation as an intense vortex over water —around 3 km off the coast of Mumbai from Malabar Hill, near Prongs Lighthouse at 9.15am.

"I saw it when I had stepped out on my balcony to take photographs of birds like I do daily. The phenomenon lasted for about 20 seconds and I managed to take two short videos. The location of the waterspout may not have been more than 1 km off Colaba early this morning. Owing to cloud cover and haze, the photos were not very clear," said Khatau, an avian and wildlife enthusiast who has documented several bird species.

A similar image of the waterspout was shared on social media by Seju Nair on Twitter. The posts stated that it was spotted near Marine Drive on Monday morning.


Some isolated spells of light rain were recorded in different parts of the city and suburbs on Monday.

HT shared Khatau's videos with the weather bureau, Union earth sciences ministry and independent meteorologists.

Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general, India Meteorological Department (IMD), called it a 'rare occurrence especially close to the coast'. "This does not happen frequently. Whenever there is any convective activity (vertical transport of heat and moisture in the atmosphere from warmer surface area and lifted to cooler zone) followed by thunderstorms, this kind of weather phenomenon is witnessed," he said adding, "This phenomenon is a tornado when it occurs over land, and over sea it is termed as a waterspout. It can happen over a river, large pond, and over the ocean. During the monsoon season, whenever there are convective clouds, it can occur in coastal areas."