20 Let’s Talk Trash! MAY / JUNE 2019
©2019 The Keenan Group, Inc
What is a Waterspout? A waterspout is a whirling column of air and water mist. Waterspouts fall into two categories: fair weather waterspouts and tornadic waterspouts. Tornadic waterspouts are tornadoes that form over water, or move from land to water. They have the same characteristics as a land tornado. They are associated with severe thunderstorms, and are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning. Fair weather waterspouts usually form along the dark flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds. This type of waterspout is generally not associated with thunderstorms. While tornadic waterspouts develop downward in a thunderstorm, a fair weather waterspout develops on the surface of the water and works its way upward. By the time the funnel is visible, a fair weather waterspout is near maturity. Fair weather waterspouts form in light wind conditions so they normally move very little. If a waterspout moves onshore, the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning, as some of them can cause significant damage and injuries to people. Typically, fair weather waterspouts dissipate rapidly when they make landfall, and rarely penetrate far inland. The cloud from which they develop can be as innocuous as a moderate cumulus, or as great as a supercell. While some waterspouts are strong and tornadic in nature, most are much weaker and caused by different atmospheric dynamics. ... More than one waterspout can occur in the same vicinity at the same time as seen in this photo from the Florida Keys taken in June of 2009 .
How much water is on Earth? • Earth is special because it has so much water. It’s in the ground, forms big oceans, and it’s in our atmosphere. • It’s also in living things. Your body is made up mostly of water. • Water covers 71 percent of Earth’s surface. And almost all of it—96.5 percent— is salt water. • Salt water has different kinds of salt in it, but it mostly has sodium chloride, the same salt we add to our food. • Just 3.5 percent of the water on Earth is fresh water we can drink. And most of that fresh water, 68 percent, is trapped in ice and glaciers. • A third of the fresh water is in the ground. We call it groundwater. The last two percent of fresh water is in the rivers, lakes, and streams. • A very small amount is in our atmosphere, where it exists as water vapor. That’s what clouds are made of. • If you took all the water on Earth and put it together it would be a ball 860 miles wide. That’s a lot of water!
https://kids.kiddle.co/Waterspout
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