Site manager Sakrit Kaewpon, who was installing water pipes at the site, told The Phuket News that the towering “water twister” appeared at about 10am several miles off Sapam Beach.
“The waterspout remained in sight from the coast for about 10 minutes, before finally disappearing,” he said.
Mr Sakrit managed to capture several photos of the gigantic waterspout.
“It was raining before the waterspout appeared. I didn’t know about it until my co-workers shouted out, ‘Look at that!” Mr Sakrit said
“We were so excited to see a real one so close. Most of us have only ever seen photos of them online.”
In the common form, a waterspout is a non-supercell tornado over water, explains online weather resource Geographic.org.
“A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water. They are connected to a towering cumuliform cloud or a cumulonimbus cloud,” the online digest explains.
While waterspouts are often weaker than most of their land counterparts, the malevolent “twisters”, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur.
“Most waterspouts do not suck up water; they are small and weak rotating columns of air over water,” Wikipedia explains. (See here.)