FIVE WATERSPOUTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4487, 3 November 1922, Page 4

FIVE WATERSPOUTS.

STEAMER'S ESCAPE IN THE CHANNEL. Five waterspouts were seen to burst in the Channel off the coast of Kent . between Deal and the South Foreland in about 75 minutes’. Soon after 10 a.m. spectators on the seafront; at Deal sa.w a great black mass detach itself from the heavy and threatening clouds which had darkened t’he sky and fall into the sea near the Goodwin Sands. A mass of, white vapour or spray then shot yards into the air. This waterspout burst to the nortn of tjie South Goodwin ligthhsip, and narrowly missed a steamer passing up the Channel,. Other waterspouts, each larger than its predecessor, drifted along in chain-like formation and burst in regular the last being the largest of the series. People living near the South Foreland heard the hiss of the falling water. A waterspout is believed to be caused by the sudden withdrawal of a current of warm air from the lower edge of the atmosphere. Usually' it lasts only about a quarter of an hour. Waterspouts generally take place in close and thundery weather, but there is nothing, except the appearance of the cloud itself, to denote

anything more serious than an ordinary thunderstorm.