News

Actions

Couple on honeymoon captures waterspout on Lake Michigan

Posted at 6:24 AM, Sep 06, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-06 15:30:16-04

A couple on their honeymoon up north this weekend caught quite the weather event on video. They spotted a waterspout on Lake Michigan Tuesday morning in the Leelanau Peninsula.

Libby Crab and her husband were on their honeymoon near Northport when they caught the waterspout on video.

According to the National Weather Service, waterspouts usually happen in the Great Lakes during the end of the summer season.

A waterspout is a "funnel which contains an intense vortex, sometimes destructive, of small horizontal extent and which occurs over a body of water," Dr. Joseph Golden, an authority on waterspouts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said.

It happens when the waters of the Great Lakes are near their warmest level of the year, and when cold air moves across the Great Lakes, causing a major difference in temperature.

This appears to be a fair weather waterspout, which according to the NWS, form only over open water, developed at the surface and climb skyward.