Man 'amazed' after capturing mysterious 'wispy' weather phenomenon off British coast

A man is "amazed" after capturing a mysterious "wispy" weather phenomenon off the British coast in Somerset.

Chris Cottrell, who runs Doniford Farm Park in Watchet, Somerset, spotted the phenomenon on the horizon while feeding his animals on Saturday morning.

A waterspout is a spinning column of air that forms a tornado over water, typically during showery conditions.

Mr Cottrell initially mistook the sight for a boat on fire, before realising he was watching a "wispy" shape moving across the water.

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He said: "I zoomed in to have a look and saw it was moving quite quickly," he said. "I carried on feeding the animals and then came out and saw a massive funnel coming down and hitting the water.

"I managed to capture it on video which was quite amazing. It was quite strange to see."

The farmer posted the footage on Facebook over the weekend, where it attracted hundreds of views.

One person on social media echoed Mr Cottrell's reaction, also describing it as "amazing".

Another applauded the farmer for capturing the water spout, calling it "fantastic footage".

He said his position on the farm gives him regular sight of weather fronts moving through the channel, working there seven days a week.

Waterspouts have been spotted over the Bristol Channel before, with photographers capturing similar sightings back in 2020.

They are small-scale weather phenomena, forming within an area often less than 2km wide, and can develop from anything as mild as a moderate cumulus cloud or as powerful as a supercell thunderstorm.

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The vast majority are classed as "fair-weather" waterspouts, which are not linked to the rotating updrafts seen in severe storms.

These tend to form quickly over coastal waters, usually lasting under 20 minutes, and rarely produce winds stronger than around 67mph.

Fair-weather waterspouts are most common in tropical and sub-tropical regions, with the Florida Keys alone seeing an estimated 400 a year.

Unlike more powerful storm systems, they tend to stay largely stationary, since they form through vertical convection rather than the clash of weather fronts.

A smaller number of waterspouts are "tornadic," forming through the same process as land-based tornadoes but occurring over water instead.

These are far rarer in areas like the UK, though in some regions, including the Adriatic and Aegean seas, they can account for around half of all recorded waterspouts.

It is also possible, though unusual, for waterspouts to form beneath snow squalls (intense winter storm) in freezing conditions.

This phenomenon sometimes referred to as a snow spout or ice devil, distinct from the surface-level "snow devils" that form without a parent cloud.

This comes as boat passengers off the Cornish coast were left stunned after spotting a rare optical illusion known as a Fata Morgana.

The phenomenon distorted a distant container ship into what appeared to be towering, shape-shifting structures on the horizon.

Spotted during a St Ives Boats sea safari near Portreath, the mirage saw the vessel morph through a series of bizarre forms.

At one point, the illusion resembled a huge bear before shifting into the shape of the mathematical symbol Pi.

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