A waterspout was spotted in the northern channel of Penang on 26 November 2014.
It is the latest in unusual weather phenomena in the northern region, coming on the heels of a mini-tornado in Kedah a few weeks earlier.
The following video clip of what looks like another waterspout that struck the waters of Penang four years ago:
According to Wikipedia:
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water. They are connected to a towering cumuliform cloud or a cumulonimbus cloud.[1] In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water.[1]
While it is often weaker than most of its land counterparts, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur.[2][3] Waterspouts do not suck up water; they are small and weak rotating columns of air over water[1][4]
While waterspouts form mostly in the tropics and subtropical areas,[1] other areas also report waterspouts, including Europe, New Zealand, the Great Lakes and Antarctica.[5][6] Although rare, waterspouts have been observed in connection with lake-effect snow precipitation bands.
Waterspouts have a five-part life cycle: formation of a dark spot on the water surface, spiral pattern on the water surface, formation of a spray ring, development of the visible condensation funnel, and ultimately decay.
But why is it that these waterspouts have only been noticed in recent years and not earlier?
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HAARP
The advent of mobile phone cameras and video functions is the reason why we are only noticing such things now. There were water spouts even in the 1970s and early 1980s but never reported simply because there was no Internet!