SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — The weather in Tampa Bay has been whiplashing between sunny and stormy all holiday weekend, and Sunday in Sarasota was no different.
A few residents saw a towering waterspout twisting through the sky, with a backdrop of blue skies and puffy white clouds.
What these people were spotting was likely a fair weather waterspout, one of two types, the other being a tornadoic waterspout.
Fair weather spouts, like the name suggests, form during otherwise calm conditions and are common in South Florida from late spring to early fall, the National Weather Service said. They usually form in the dark, flat bases of cumulus clouds, which can be seen in the photos below.
Tornadoic spouts, on the other hand, are more similar to tornadoes that form over land and often appear alongside thunderstorms…