Waterspouts, dust devils and thermals

[ricki]

This came up on kiteforum recently, here are a few of the posts:

Originally Posted by esganmoro

Yesterday we were at the beach, kiting with 5-25knots from side off shore winds. I went near our cars to land mine as it seemed to be going off. Suddenly a twister (? i don´t know if it can be called like that) was born and lifted me (90kgs - w/9mts kite) to the sky about 2/3mts, my kite collapsed, broke 2 lines, kiteloop and shoulder land to the ground 1mts from cars. Upppssss!!! It was a shame that we were filming our session but the twitter made our camera fall to ground.....
Never happen that to me before............

Originally Posted by RickI

Good stuff on thermals, thanks for posting it. Regarding waterspouts being harmless and riding through them, your friend is a lucky guy. To date, we've had one kiter killed in Italy, another near fatality at the same time and a kiter permanently paralyzed by yet another waterspout from appearances. All were blown horizontally with substantial force at speed. Waterspouts have sunk boats and played havoc with things at sea since we've been out there. I would avoid them like the plague.


Waterspout wind field. Checkout the horizontal outflow component and the undefined vertical component by the shaft. Winds plenty strong enough to mess up a kiter.

There are fair weather waterspouts, such as frequent the Florida Keys and Great Lakes. These generate winds on the order of less than 60 mph to around 100 mph, perhaps more. These are associated with cummulous clouds. Then there are tornadic waterspouts connected to supercell cummulonimbus storm clouds. The super cell can throw out lethal winds all by itself without any input from the waterspout. This is a far more common scenario where kiters are concerned. Tornadic waterspouts can develop into as high as F5 tornados on land although rarely. An F1 twister is plenty enough to kill you though if you have a kite up, regardless of kite orientation.

Here is a video of a waterspout that went ashore in Australia and turned into a tornado in short order. Checkout the debris field, anyone up for flying a kite through this?
http://<br /> http://footage.bsch.a...pout040806.wmv