Waterspout

Abstract

ON April 28 last the Cunard steamship Servia, in making her outward voyage to New York, fell in with several small waterspouts. Being on deck at the time I made a rough sketch and some notes of the occurrence, which I now venture to send you, having learned that many officers of these steamers have sailed the North Atlantic for years without having witnessed any similar phenomenon there. The ship's position may be easily deduced from the fact that her latitude was 42° 24′ and longitude 51° 3′ at noon on the 27th, while these were 41° 42′ and 59° 53′ respectively at noon on the 28th, at 8.30 a.m. of which day we met the waterspouts. There was hardly any wind at the time, and the sky, which had been generally overcast, was rapidly breaking up into masses of cumulus clouds separated by wide spaces of blue. About a dozen waterspouts were seen in all, the ship passing right through one of them and thus enabling me to estimate its diameter by direct comparison with the known beam of the Servia.