Tropical Storm Bret Produces Waterspout Offshore FL

Tropical Storm Bret remains well to the east of central Florida with 50mph winds, but has helped to produce bands of heavy showers along the Florida east coast on Monday. One of these bands was moving onshore near Ft Pierce inlet, FL earlier this afternoon, and produced this waterspout about 2-3 miles offshore. The waterspout was embedded in rains, and it was hard to make out the surface circulation, but held it’s funnel structure for about ten minutes before dissipating. Other water-spouts were reported in the Florida Keys, and near Daytona Beach as well on Monday.

Tropical Storm Bret also was helping to send in a small ground swell that surfers were taking advantage of throughout the afternoon. There was some minor beach erosion on the south side of the inlet, and made for some interesting navigation to reach the water. Bret is forecast to track out into the Atlantic away from the United States, and only produce some waves along the southeast U.S. coast.

Waterspouts On Lake Okeechobee FL Video

Several hours before sunset on Friday August 6, 2010, I took off to see if any good evening lightning storms would develop after dark for some photography opportunities. I watched on radar as several outflow boundaries, and the east and west coast sea breezes looked to be tracking for the Lake Okeechobee region. I was pretty sure a decent boundary collision would take place, and I made it to the waters edge of the eastern shores not far from the Martin / Okeechobee county line.

Shortly after arriving at the lake, impressive towering cumulus was developing along the boundary pretty much over the north-central portion of the lake. It didn’t take long to start seeing a well developed rain core and some decent black bases. I must of counted 3-4 small funnel clouds over about a 10 minute period, but nothing lasting more than maybe 30 seconds and never produced.

As the storm began build closer and further northeast towards my location, I could see a little more in the way of organization of the storm. Lightning increased and there were a few interesting lowerings. The first waterspout was very hard to see, and I didn’t notice it right away due to the rain. The second was the more impressive spout, and lasted about 2 minutes. I could clearly see a spray ring at the surface, and a well developed spout from clouds base to the water surface.

The third spout was only really visible when looking at the cloud base, but I could see a tiny spry ring that lasted only seconds. It quickly roped out like the previous two. The storm quickly became outflow dominate sending a blast of outflow winds northeastward.

I have to say it was pretty interesting to see yet another water spout on Lake Okeechobee. This I believe is my 6th since coming to the lake for storms. It made for a great end to my week, and a nice sunset storm over the waters. Hope you enjoy the video.

Update: This video is also airing on CNN TV.