© Tim Osborn, NOAA Coast Survey.
A scientist caught the birth of rare twin waterspouts on camera as the twisters churned to life over Louisiana waters yesterday (May 9). One of the powerful and unusually long-lived twisters damaged homes and cut power as it barreled across Grand Isle, a long, narrow island along the southeastern leg of the state's Gulf coastline.
The tornadoes formed at the front edge of a
powerful storm system that moved across the region yesterday afternoon.
Tim Osborn, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coast Survey was just finishing up a meeting on Grand Isle when he spied a man out the window do a double-take and point to the skies.
"He came running in and said, 'There's a waterspout out there!'" Osborn told OurAmazingPlanet. So Osborn grabbed his camera and started snapping, catching the birth of not one, but two waterspouts as they spun up over waters just north of the island.
"You could clearly see them forming in the sky," he said, "and I was able to get them on the camera as they were starting to drop."
Comment: Rare?
This is from a year ago:
Amazing waterspout 'tornadoes' caught on camera off Australia
Not one or two but THREE waterspouts!