Late summer and fall are the most likely times in metro Grand Rapids to catch an awesome natural phenomenon without risking life or limb -- waterspouts over Lake Michigan.
With the right weather conditions and luck, you may be able to spot waterspouts anywhere along the lakeshore of the metro Grand Rapids area. Residents of lakeshore communities say these vortexes that resemble pint-sized tornadoes are infrequent, but not rare.
Fair weather waterspouts generally are a result of a large temperature difference between the lake's warm water and cold air above it. For instance, there was a 25 degree-difference between the warm water and a mass of cold air that moved into our area Sept. 25 that spawned an unusual number of waterspouts from Chicago to Milwaukee. While there weren't reports of waterspouts locally on that Sunday, National Weather Service records show that people saw several of these sprites dancing offshore from Holland and Saugatuck about five years ago on Sept. 29.
Grand Rapids residents Linda and Mike Rankin caught a waterspout show on Aug. 7 three years ago from a hillside cottage above the Bil-Mar restaurant in Grand Haven, which they caught on camera (see photo and boat in foreground). Thoroughly enthralled by the show, the Rankins and scads of others watched a family of water spouts play across the lake for several minutes.
Retired meteorologist Will Beaton, a permanent resident of Grand Haven, saw the same waterspouts as the Rankins and noted the "large temperature differential between the water -- in the mid 70s -- and the air -- in the low 50s." An avid surfer, Beaton maintains a website called http://www.surfgrandhaven.com/ that provides current information on air and water temperatures at Grand Haven, as well as a constantly running webcam.
But Beaton and a group of other surfers actually were caught in the water near a waterspout in the 1980s. The surfers were at the south side of the pier in mid-September, with lake water at about 75 degrees and cool air filtering into the area after several warm days. "The strange part of this day was how still it was -- even though we had good-sized waves and the sky was threatening," Beaton recalls. Shortly before sunset, a waterspout formed with some estimated winds of 40 to 50 knots. "Other than blowing our boards around and being blinded by spray, all of the surfers escaped unharmed," he says. "Other than being surprised, I was more excited than afraid."
Wayne Hoepner, meteorologist with the Grand Rapids office of the National Weather Service, says this type of waterspout -- a "fair weather" one versus simply a tornado over the lake -- is the result of vertical mixing of air. The warm water creates a rising current of air that at some point starts to rotate and evolves into a vortex, a whirling mass of air that draws water into its center and up its sides.
To help visualize how waterspouts form, think about the way water moves down a drain. When you first open the drain in a sink filled with water, the water appears first to fall straight down the drain, but then it starts to rotate into a vortex. This is the general principle for waterspouts, except that the air is moving up rather than down. (As a side note, water does NOT always drain counterclockwise in sinks, toilets and bathtubs in our homes in the northern hemisphere. There are many more forces of much greater magnitude that act on water in a sink or toilet than the Coriolis force -- which causes low pressure systems to rotate in a counterclockwise direction in the northern hemisphere. Water at rest for more than a week in a large, specially designed sink will drain counterclockwise due to the Coriolis force.)
Fair weather waterspouts form in relatively calm weather along the dark flat bases of developing cumulus clouds, usually early to mid morning or in the late afternoon. A stiff breeze will interfere with the vertical mixing of air, so fair weather waterspouts develop during light wind conditions. They move slowly and generally dissipate rapidly if they reach land. Experts say they have wind speeds of 40 to 60 mph that can flip a boat, but this equates to an F0 on the Fujita scale of tornado intensity.
So keep your eye on the air and water temperature reports, And even if you don't catch a glimpse of the elusive waterspout, what could be better than taking in a view of Lake Michigan on a beautiful fall day.
07-16-2011
Jack Fisk knew he had a huge problem on his hands last Tuesday when bales of hay in his barn that were smoldering from spontaneous combustion suddenly ignited "just like a bomb going off" as he tried to remove them with a skid loader.
Fanned by a steady breeze from the northwest, other bales of hay stacked three high started to burn as flames leaped like they do in a forest fire -- and the barn held several hundred bales.
For the next 12 hours, Jack and at least eight fire departments near Sand Lake, Mich. fought to control the inferno. Smoke could be seen more than 10 miles away by motorists driving along US-131 who then called 911 to report the incident.
Water used to control the blaze soaked the hay and possibly set the stage for additional fire: moisture and high humidity cause spontaneous combustion of hay and other organic materials in the first place. Four days after the original blaze, the hay still continues to smolder and crackles when the wind whips up.
"All you can do is let a hay fire like this burn sometimes," says Jack, 46, who with his wife, Kacie, run the Fisk Dairy Farm started by his father, Ross, in 1947. "The more water you put on it, and it starts to burn even more days later." The fire departments also used foam to contain the original fire, but Jack is reluctant to use the salvaged hay as feed for his animals.
So what really was responsible for the blaze that destroyed a hoop barn, several pieces of farm equipment and nearly 600 bales of alfalfa hay that Jack uses to feed his herd of 200 cows?
Turns out that plant respiration and the growth of molds and micro-organisms work in concert to bring the hay to the point of ignition in a range 180° to 210°F, according to a report from Lester Vough, a specialist with the University of Maryland. Respiration is the process of converting sugars and starches with the help of oxygen in the air into water and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Alfalfa continues this respiration even after it is cut, with the process winding down as the moisture content falls. Mold and bacteria also generate heat as they grow in a moist environment.
Jack says his hay was dry enough when he bailed it, but moisture may have gotten into the interior of his barn from some of the high winds and rain earlier in the month.
He says he is insured for the damage, but the fire has set him back on other work that has to be done on the 1,100-acre farm. "Cows still have to be milked three times a day," Jack adds.
