(Liz Klimas) Over the weekend, a freighter closer to the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan caught a rare sight of not one but five waterspouts above the lake. The National Weather Service recorded a total of nine waterspouts cropping up with winds around 45 miles per hour.
Freighter captain and storm chaser Eric Treece was able to film a dense grouping of the waterspouts. MLive.com has more from Treece on the water formations he saw Saturday and his experience with them over the years:
“Being out here, I get a really good view of thunderstorms over the lake,” said Treece, who operates ColoradoStormChaser.com.
“Once in a while we’ll get lucky and come across a waterspout outbreak.”
The conditions were right for the tornado-like formations on Saturday. Treece said they formed on the frontal boundary line as the freighter was passing by, about one to two miles off the port stern.
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“This is the first time I’ve seen waterspouts like that since probably 1997,” he said, but “I know some guys on the boat who see them once or twice a year.”
Treece said the waterspouts lasted about 45 minutes. Watch this footage taken of them via BBC’s report:
