Lake Michigan waterspout off Foster Avenue Beach and the Montrose Avenue Pier along Chicago's lakefront Thursday morning
This waterspout was captured by Ryan Szekeres out over Lake Michigan at 11 a.m. Thursday morning. Unusually chilly air over the lake's comparatively warm water contributed to the instability (the steep decline of temperature with height in place at the time of this vortex's formation) behind the waterspout's formation. Lake water temperatures off Chicago at the time averaged 57-degrees while readings just a mile aloft were only 27-degrees---a nearly 30-degree temperature drop! It's at least the second time in a week that a waterpout has been spotted off the Chicago shoreline.
--Tom Skilling
