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August 25, 2008
Waterspout surprises Buxton residents and visitors
By IRENE NOLAN  It was a bright, sunny morning in Buxton. Visitors were strolling on the beaches, and surfers were preparing to drop in on the next wave. At about 7:45 a.m., locals were headed to work, and parents were taking their children to the first day of school. Donna Barnett, graphic designer and Web master for The Island Free Press, was driving her daughter, Hannah, 8, to her first day of third grade at Cape Hatteras Elementary School. It was not a stormy morning, and Barnett was startled to see a large waterspout over the ocean as she drove on Highway 12 between Frisco and Buxton. “It was crazy,” she said. “It was really starting to worry me…..It was there for a long time.” Dee Goldman also saw the waterspout from her home in Buxton, near the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative plant. She jumped in her car and drove to the oceanfront in Buxton near the Cape Hatteras Motel and took the photos that accompany this article. Her husband, Terry, said the sun was shining as she took the photos and that the waterspout never came near shore. Robert Frederick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Newport, N.C., said his office was notified by Dare County officials about the sighting of the waterspout about 7:45 a.m. At the time, he said, there was a small shower on radar about five miles east of Buxton, moving east. The Weather Service issued a special marine warning for boaters. “They tend to form this time of year when the water is warmer,” Frederick said. “They are so small that it is impossible to detect them on radar,” he added. Frederick said these waterspouts, unlike destructive tornadoes, form when there is a weak shear in the atmosphere up to 10,000 feet. And it is typical for them to be associated with a small shower, rather than more volatile atmospheric conditions in which large tornadoes form. It didn’t rain in Buxton. The sun continued to shine, and the small shower that produced the waterspout rained itself out over the ocean. But it gave locals and visitors – and youngsters going back to school -- something to really talk about today. |
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