Waterspout · Lake Erie

Waterspout photographed offshore Vermilion around 6:45 AM EDT. Location approximated based on Doppler radar data.

The Lake Erie region resided in the cool sector during the early to mid-morning of the 24th. Simultaneously, appreciable lake-induced instability resided over Lake Erie, which was warm relative to overlying air. As a surface trough axis swept southeastward across the lake during the early morning hours, isolated lake-enhanced showers and thunderstorms developed over western portions of Lake Erie. The updraft of one of the thunderstorms managed to spawn a waterspout, which occurred as the updraft ingested surface-based vertical vorticity, low-level convergence at the base of the updraft stretched the surface-based vertical vorticity to tornado-strength, and then the vertical vorticity was advected upward in the updraft. The surface-based vertical vorticity was generated by low-level horizontal wind shear along the surface trough axis.