CALANGUTE: In an unusual and interesting weather phenomenon, some persons on Baga-Calangute beach witnessed a “minor whirlwind” swirl towards the beach and dissipate near a resort on Monday evening.
A vertical whitish column was seen rising up into the sky and advancing slowly.
“We first saw this between 6.15pm and 6.30pm, advancing slowly about 300m from the beach, churning the water as it came,” said John Lobo, secretary of Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS).
As the column came closer, Lobo started recording a video of it till it made landfall near a resort at Khobravaddo.
It then blew away a storage hut on the beach before dissipating around 30m on the landward side, but caused no other damage or hurt to anyone.
“We were about to run when it came on the beach, barely 50m away from where we were standing, but it moved slightly away from us before dissipating,” Lobo said.
“This is a localised phenomenon which may have lasted a few minutes,” said M R Ramesh Kumar, National Institute of Oceanogrpahy meteorologist and retired chief scientist.
He said that it was an intense columnar vortex appearing as a funnel shaped cloud over a water body.
“After watching the video, it appears to be a minor whirlwind or a waterspout at Baga-Calangute beach.
The exact details couldn’t be ascertained for want of atmospheric data over that region at that particular time.” He said that this type of phenomena may be occurring and may have gone unnoticed.
Appreciating the recording of the weather event, he said that similar videos recorded of hailstorms in Shiroda and other places, a few month ago, had helped in better understanding of that particular phenomenon.
“These are the type of occurrences which should be reported to IMD,” he said.
“This is a waterspout which forms over water bodies because of highly localised atmospheric instability.
They usually dissipate when moved on to land.
They are much weaker than a tornado and less lasting,” said Rahul M, IMD scientist.