Waterspouts are “more common than you might think” in Ireland, a leading weather expert has warned. Yesterday, a luxury yacht sank off the Italian coast and out of the 22 people on board, only 15 have been rescued. The 56m British-flagged Bayesian got into trouble when a heavy storm saw the yacht come into contact with waterspouts - which look like rotating columns of air.
UCC’s Cathal Nolan described them as “very much in the same family as tornadoes”. “They form in a similar manner - generally speaking, at the bottom of thunderstorms which have a rotation within them,” he told Moncreiff . “What we see is this column of air extending down towards the ground; initially a funnel cloud and if it makes contact with the ground, it becomes a tornado.
“But in this case, it forms over the sea or over any waterbody at that point then it becomes a waterspout.” Mr Nolan said waterspouts do not come up often in the context of Irish meteorology but they do happen nonetheless. “There is a brilliant book that’s been published.
.. which focuses on tornadoes and waterspouts in Ireland,” he said.
“They’re actually surprisingly more common than you might think. “There was one reported just off Dún Laoghaire actually towards the end of May this year. “So, we do get them in Ireland.
” Mr Nolan said they “certainly are dangerous” and warned they are “not easy to predict”. “Sometimes they come onshore and we’ve seen videos..
. of them coming onshore a.