The waterspout that caused the fatal sinking of the luxury superyacht carrying British tech billionaire Mike Lynch in Italy has been he was left called a freak “black swan” event. But scientists believe such sea tornadoes are becoming more common with global warming.
Although the cause of the sinking Bayesian It was not officially established, weather conditions and witness accounts from Sicily, where the yacht was anchored off the coast, led experts to suspect that it was a waterspout, spinning column air and water mist. A key factor in waterspouts is heated water — and last year the ocean surface heated up to record temperatures, partly because of climate change.
“If this rate of warming continues into the future, it is very likely that these events will become common, not rare,” says Michalis Sioutas, a doctor of meteorology who studies waterspouts in Greece and is a board member of the Hellenic Meteorological Society. “It is very possible that waterspouts, and even tornadoes and extreme storms, will become common.”
180 feet Bayesian sank within minutes after a sudden storm with high winds and intense lightning snapped its mast at about 4 a.m. Monday. Fifteen people who were on board were rescued, while one person was found dead. Six people are missing, including British technology billionaire Mike Lynch, who was recently cleared of fraud in connection with the sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard. The bodies of five people were recovered from the sunken ship on Wednesday, but have not yet been identified.
Fishermen saw Just before the yacht sank, a waterspout appeared nearby and a nearby schooner was tossing and turning, causing its captain, Karsten Borner, called “hurricane gust” that he believes he turned over BayesianExperts said conditions were favorable for the formation of a waterspout.
This extreme weather phenomenon occurs when heated, wet air rises quickly over water, swirling as winds change direction at different heights. The result is a long, curving funnel of spray between the water and the clouds, narrowing as it rises 10,000 feet into the sky.
It comes in two flavors. The more vanilla one is waterspout in good weatherwhich forms in relatively placid and even bright conditions, often under a billowy cumulus cloud. It occurs more frequently in places like the Great Lakes and the Florida Keys, reaches wind speeds of 50 miles per hour, and usually disintegrates before it can cause significant damage.
Then there are the powerful waterspouts, essentially tornadoes over water, which “are a whole different beast,” according to Wade Szilagyi, a retired forecaster with the Meteorological Service of Canada who now directs the International Center for Waterspout Research. These waterspouts can move from land to water or vice versa and spin at speeds of 125 miles per hour or more. They have been known to throw up debris, rip apart buildings and capsize boats.