A water spout was spotted off the Kona Coast Thursday evening. ADVERTISING A water spout was spotted off the Kona Coast Thursday evening. Bayview Estates resident Bill Fountain observed the funnel cloud from his home for about 15 to 20
A water spout was spotted off the Kona Coast Thursday evening.
Bayview Estates resident Bill Fountain observed the funnel cloud from his home for about 15 to 20 minutes around 7 p.m. The funnel cloud remained offshore just south of Keauhou Bay, he said.
“I caught it just coming down, and it would go down quite a ways but never hit the water, not even half way to the water and then it would go up,” he said. “But it would never go up all the way into the cloud.”
He said he observed the funnel cloud go up and down about four times before it went out of view.
National Weather Service Forecaster Tom Birchard said the service had received reports of a water spout off Kealakekua Thursday evening. He noted that residents may see water spouts develop off the leeward coast on Friday thanks to a long line of showers between 10 and 80 miles offshore of the Kona Coast.
Waterspouts tend to form in long cloud lines and under dark flat cloud bases like was observed by Fountain Thursday evening, he said.
“But it takes more than just to have a dark flat cloud,” Birchard explained. “The formation mechanism is relatively strong updraft associated with developing clouds. Because the pressure is lower there, it leads to the condensation of water, which makes the funnel cloud more visible.”
