7 simultaneous waterspouts in Finland

The waterspout is a whirlpool that forms under a thunderstorm and which descends to a maritime surface: it is quite simply a question of a tornado which forms above water (sea or lake), whereas a tornado forms above land. Just like tornadoesit happens that some very powerful storms, such as supercells, generate not one waterspout, the most common, but sometimes two or three. This event still remains infrequent, even if it occurs every year in certain very stormy areas such as the Mediterranean Sea. The coasts of Nice, Cannes, or Bastia, for example, are well known for being the scene of impressive waterspouts, singly or multiple. On the side of Italy and Croatia, it has already happened to see six waterspouts at the same time.

An explosive weather context

Over the past weekend, a Finnish coastguard was able to capture an astonishing spectacle: up to seven waterspouts under the same storm, in the maritime area between Pyhämaa and Kustavi.

The Finland is not known for its thunderstorms, tornadoes or waterspouts, but the situation of the last few days has been marked by a big contrast air masses, causing violent thunderstorms. This area of ​​the Baltic Sea is abnormally warm at the moment (16°C these days compared to a normal of 12°C in July), and a descent of cold air has generated a context weather report explosive. It is precisely under the most powerful thunderstorms that extreme phenomena such as tornadoes and waterspouts can form. The seven waterspouts remained at sea, not approaching the beaches, and did no damage.