Raft of waterspouts cause dramatic scenes in Mediterranean ports

A number of waterspouts have formed across the Mediterranean in recent days, causing damage to busy coastal areas and marinas.

Two ‘water whirlwinds’ crashed into the south-west coast of Turkey yesterday, damaging several yachts and cars in Marmaris Yacht Marina. The heavy winds also caused minor to mid-level damage to piers and walls within the facility. No injuries have been reported; an alert was sounded to warn people in the immediate vicinity that the extreme weather event was taking place.

According to observers, the tornado-like waterspouts passed yesterday afternoon (21^st November) with an interval of 40 minutes.

A number of people uploaded videos of the waterspouts to Twitter.

Bu da hortumun kendisi.
Geçmiş olsun! pic.twitter.com/lCeirTbO0s

— Eyyup KARACA. (@eypkrc) November 21, 2018

The incident comes shortly after a similar waterspout crashed into the southern Italian city of Salerno. Locals filmed the vortex edging into the port’s harbour.

There have been no reports of injuries, but a number of freight containers were damaged.

View this post on Instagram

Tromba d'aria a Vietri sul Mare pochi minuti fa. Non ho mai visto una scena del genere. #ilmeteo #vietrisulmare

A post shared by Antonio Stanzione (@antoniostan37) on Nov 20, 2018 at 6:28am PST

What are waterspouts?

Waterspouts are very similar to tornadoes, but form over water when cool and unstable air moves over warmer waters and turns into a spinning column of water. Once they pass over solid ground, they tend to disperse relatively quickly.

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