Just a little while ago Katy Newman wrote: I know that you collect rainbows…this funnel shaped cloud (waterspout?) appeared out my bedroom window this afternoon. Then she attached a sequence of four photos. (See the gallery below-click to enlarge any image.) Here’s an enlarged detail of her fourth photo:
I checked, and sure enough at 3:33 EDT the National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather warning: WATERSPOUTS ARE POSSIBLE ALONG THE NEARSHORE AND OPEN LAKE WATERS OF
LAKE MICHIGAN AND LAKE HURON THROUGH EARLY EVENING. There is a little red Advisory! in the Torch Lake Views Weather Widget. This is exciting stuff. I wish I knew what it meant.
I looked it up. Turns out that waterspouts on Lake Michigan are fairly common, and that there have been a number recently. Some fairly spectacular ones off South Haven merited stories in the Muskegon Chronicle: Waterspouts sprout on Lake Michigan (with a really nice press service photo by a Kalamazoo Gazette photographer), on Grand Rapids WOOD-TV and on Bill Steffens’ Blog.
A National Weather Service scientist at the station in Gaylord explains it all to you in Waterspouts. That bastion of scientific information USA Today says Waterspouts are tornadoes over water and—it pains me to admit this—does a good job of telling you why.
So. What I want to know is this: Did anyone else see the waterspout? Take pictures? Jump overboard to get out of its path? An even more interesting possibility arises. Katy’s window looks west over both Torch Lake and the Bay, with lots of trees in between. Now I’m pretty sure that spout was over the Bay – but if somebody saw a tornado on Torch Lake I definitely want to hear about it.
Torch Lake Views 
Gerry Sell
September 7, 2008
OK, here’s the deal. Katherine (not to be confused with Katy) left a very interesting comment on the page for Waterspout image 3, but I figured you might not see it over there, and so I decided to copy it here and answer it here.
KB: According to Steve (who knows everything) the horizon is about 53 miles away…. accounting for the hills and the fact that it’s not a straight shot, I would still think that waterspout is over the Bay. But it’s not a fact just a guess.
Me: This makes sense. So now I wonder if the waterspout was over the East Bay, the West Bay, or Lake Michigan? But it seems pretty clear it wasn’t on Torch. For one thing, there’s the 53 mile thing, but the main thing is, if we’d had a waterspout on Torch Lake I think a lot more readers would have noticed right away, on account of the total amazement factor.
Beth Toner
September 8, 2008
HOLY Toledo! That’s a great shot… and let me tell you, it’s tornadoes, more than snow, that would keep me from moving back to Michigan…. Too many summer nights in the basement!
BTW, Gerry, my mom-in-law and son secretly filled a jar with Torch Lake water for me and gave it to me last night to keep in my study nook at home as I forge through my full-time job AND nursing school!
I’ll try to remember to take a photo and send it to you!
Gerry Sell
September 8, 2008
Isn’t that something though? This blog is a lot more interesting since Bill and Babs and Katy and Donna and Katherine – and you! – started sending me good stuff.
Your jar of water will help. I know it will. When I thought I might have to give up the Writing Studio and Bait Shop, I bought a tiny blue pitcher from the Bier Gallery, decorated with one of Tami Bier’s endearing frogs. I filled it with tiny treasures: a sifting of beach sand, a snip of cedar, a beechnut, a piece of sweetgrass. It got me through a hard time – and then I didn’t have to give up the WSBS after all! How great was THAT!
Do send me a picture of your new study decor. And sometimes late at night when you can’t stand to read one more paragraph and you’re too tired to sleep, look at the Torch Lake water and remember the sound of it lapping gently at the dock. It will always be there for you. Keep in touch.
Gerry Sell
September 8, 2008
AHA! An update on this waterspout. Following the little red Advisory! in the weather widget, I find a Local Storm Report:
09/07/2008 0215 pm
3 miles N of Elk Rapids, Antrim County.
Water spout, reported by public.
On east arm of Grand Traverse Bay.
Awww-RIGHT! Go Katy!
Colleen Wanket
September 12, 2008
I was right on the beach in Elk Rapids on Lake Shore Drive and saw it first hand. I was with my children and my mother and was very confused at what it was at first. Then my dad came running down the street pushing my youngest and yelling, “Do you see it?”
It was so black and you could see the water splashing around the bottom with binoculars (so my dad said). I didn’t photograph it though, because I was trying to respond to the shock factor. I saw it rise up in the end and disappear into the clouds. It was located right off of Mission Point area.
Gerry Sell
September 12, 2008
Colleen, that’s a riveting description of the waterspout. Thank you for sending it.