A tornado over Lake Erie? Its still technically considered a waterspout but, if this storm would have formed over land, we would have been in a whole heap of trouble! Strong storms moved through Northern Ohio the evening of September 27, 2006. Power of 5 Live Doppler Network radar detected very strong rotation in one of those thunderstorms about 20 miles north of Avon Lake at about 8:15 pm. The radar evidence suggests a tornado had indeed formed in that thunderstorm! Our radar technology pinpointed the area of strong ground-level, or, in this case, water-level rotation over central Lake Erie. Image #1 (above) shows the 3-D cylinder reaching down to the lake surface just north of Lorain County at 8:15 pm.
Traditional waterspouts form when very cold air moves over a very warm body of water. Rising and falling air begins to wrap around itself and a funnel is formed. For a traditional waterspout to form, no thunderstorm is necessary and if the funnel hits land it would soon dissipate. Sometimes, severe thunderstorms move over bodies of water. They can still produce hail, damaging winds and tornadoes as they would over land. As in this case, the storm produced a probable tornado that just happened to be over Lake Erie...


Image #2 (above) is the actual radar image at that time. Note the red circle near the indentation in the line of strong thunderstorms.


Image #3 (left) is the clincher! This is a wind velocity image taken at 8:15 pm. Notice the curvature of wind moving in toward the red circle. This is the best evidence we have that a tornado was forming at this time.

A close-up view of the wind velocity in Image #4. The small area of red color right next to the red circle in the center of the picture is air blowing away from the radar. The green color surrounding the red is air blowing toward the radar. Wind shear here was measured near 100 miles per hour!