MARION COUNTY, Fla. — A large waterspout over Lake Weir in Marion county was spotted Friday evening. This video was captured by Nina Ingram while out jet skiing when the funnel cloud developed.
“We were out jet skiing and it started to get really dark and lighting so we decided it was time to pack it up and go, and then we looked up and it kept getting really dark. To the right of it in the water we seen what looked like someone on a jet ski doing doughnuts and it was splashing up. Then the cloud started connecting to it,” Nina stated. She took this video after she rushed by to shore after seeing the funnel cloud develop.
The national weather service did have a severe thunderstorm warning in place at the time of this event. No damage was reported from this waterspout. Lake Weir is a rather large lake in central Florida covering 9 square miles and is often used for recreational activities. This time of year with afternoon storms developing almost daily waterspouts and tornadoes are a threat across our many lakes and rivers in North East Florida.
There are two primary types of waterspouts. Those being fair weather and Tornadic.
Fair weather waterspouts are less dangerous but can be common across the state of Florida throughout our summer months. Fair weather waterspouts often form along dark flat bases of a line of developing cumulus or towering cumulus clouds and are typically not associated with thunderstorms.
Tornadic waterspouts are simply tornadoes that form over water or move from land to water. They are associated with severe thunderstorms and have the same characteristics as a tornado.
On average about 60 tornadoes form in the state of Florida each year. Most of these form with our afternoon thunderstorms during the summer, spring time fronts that dive in bringing colder air colliding with warm air in Florida or landfalling hurricanes.