Word: waterspouts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Royal Oak, water and fire rose even higher. We saw one waterspout after another followed by a series of huge explosions-white, red and green lights in a fireworks display such as I never had seen before. Pieces of deckwork, masts and smokestacks flew up into the air, giving the impression that the entire ship was blown completely to smithereens...
...Last fortnight a tall waterspout formed off Staten Island, N. Y. played around for ten minutes before vanishing, did no damage. Coast guardsmen estimated its height at 2,000 ft., biggest ever sighted in New York harbor, first of any size since...
Ancient mariners regarded waterspouts as dragons, tried to disperse them by stamping their feet, shouting, beating drums, clashing swords. When gunpowder came into use, sailors tried to break the columns by shooting cannon. The spouts are chiefly vapor but may contain fresh water condensed from the cloud or salt water sucked up from the sea. Like tornadoes they are atmospheric vortices caught by conflicting air currents, with partial vacuums at their cores. In general, however, they are much less violent than the average tornado, do damage only by dropping their loads of water. If a land tornado passed...
Many an old sailor has never seen a waterspout, but when they appear at all they are usually in groups. As many as 30 have been sighted from a single ship in one day. Twenty or thirty feet is the average diameter, although a few are as thick as 700 ft. Spouts a mile high have been reported. Usually they move with the wind but may travel in other directions at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. Average life of a spout...
...vicious spout swung inland from the bay off Swansea, Wales, struck a hillside, gutted a row of houses, washed 8,000 tons of earth, rock, debris and human beings to the bottom of the slope. Once a waterspout hit a White Star liner headon, doused the crow's nest, slopped tons of water on the decks, wrecked the bridge and chartroom, flooded cabins. Five years ago Bordeaux housewives reaped a harvest of small fish swept up from the River Garonne into a water twister, carried inshore and deposited wriggling in the streets...