At least you weren't sailing when that blew through. What's the emergency protocol for a water tornado?
In a small craft, if you can't avoid it, bend over, stick your head between your legs and kiss your *ss goodbye.
On a power boat, you can usually outrun them. On a sailboat you try, but it's not always possible. I generally try for a 90° angle from the oncoming path. They have a fairly small footprint, so if you can keep off to the side all is okay. A couple of years ago we had three of them dancing around at the same time we were out sailing. They stayed at a safe distance, so it was fun. I should also mention shortening sail. Generally you get it all down. Tom
We all have our own definitions of 'fun'. I've never seen a tornado. I'm pretty sure I'd rather not be watching three of them at once from a 30ft sailboat - hiding under heavy furniture in the basement isn't an option. Living though fear is always more fun after the fact.
I've watched funnel clouds passing by my house - the awesome power of nature at her worst is amazing. Of course, that was in Minnesota... Here, we get rain. And wind. Lots of it. Had a "technical hurricane" a couple of years ago. It was pretty amazing, too. We were fortunate to have no damage.
I've been through five tornadoes, not counting waterspouts, camping through two of them (which was interesting). One of them I completely missed because I was working in the basement of a very large building. The weather was nice when I went down, rainy when I came up. In between the downtown area had been demolished. Where I live now we don't often get tornadoes. The water tends to screw up the energy differential needed to sustain a normal tornado. We do get waterspouts with some regularity, but they aren't very scary. Tom
I was maybe 80-100 yards from a tornado once and didn't even know it. It was rain-wrapped, and all the thunder and lightning were distracting me. We heard wind, but not the distinctive freight train sound. My mom and I were watching this display from our big picture window. We could only see the trees when there was lightning, and one time I thought the birch trees were bending a different way. The next lightning flash they were bending a 3rd way, so we figured out we better head for the basement. A couple trees had also gone down by this point - they probably saved us, as the debris from the barn that was losing its roof at the same time was caught by these trees instead of hitting the house. Now my dad was in the barn (trying to get the sheep inside because of the storm), and he definitely heard the tornado, it went right over him. He dove for a pole and held on. Afterwards he got up and looked around, everything seemed okay, except he felt rain on his face. Looked up and no roof. We figure it was an F1 based on damage, but we never had a weather guy come out and look at it, so it was never officially recognized as a tornado. This was in far northern MN, which rarely gets tornadoes. There is damage from the winds, but the biggest danger is flying debris. There were 20 foot 2x8's (barn rafters) that were speared 4 feet into the ground and sheet metal wrapped around trees, you definitely don't want to be outside in that. But a water spout wouldn't have much flying debris, just a lot of horizontal water spray, so in that regard it's a lot safer. Biggest danger is losing your boat and you're far from shore. I've also seen a fair-sized dust devil (caused by a controlled burn on a prairie) and that had a definite loud sucking sound, like a big vacuum cleaner. I'm surprised I didn't hear that with the tornado. I also saw a snow devil in MN - like a dust devil, but made up of snow. I was out snowshoeing in the woods, not your typical location. On the first day of spring, which I also thought was interesting.
