While we were sailing offshore the other morning, the weather was beautiful, but not especially unusual, at least at first glance. The atmosphere was very unstable, but on a very small scale. Not something you frequently see a hundred miles offshore. Karen was on watch at sunrise (which meant Bill was asleep) and she got some great pictures.

The first photo was of a rain shower Karen called “The Dump.” A very small, but obviously very intense rain shower. Just amazing that such intensity can be so local. I think this comes under the category of what a meteorologist would call a “microburst.”

Her next photo was quite a bit more dramatic–and unusual.

A long and skinny tornado. Well, technically I guess it should be a “waterspout,” but I doubt the difference matters if you are close to it!

While she was watching this in real time, she didn’t realize that it actually reached all the way down to the water, but if you look closely at the photo you can see the sea spray being thrown up where the funnel touches down. Again, this was really, really local. We saw no strong winds, and no rain on the deck of Harmonie. All the same, we were happy to not be too close to this.