CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Did you see these waterspouts near The Island on Tuesday morning?
Many viewers sent in pictures and videos of the ominous-looking weather phenomenon and wondered if it was cause for worry. Our 3NEWS Weather Team was quick to add reassurance about resident's safety in this case, but they say that sometimes waterspouts will warrant a marine warning.
3NEWS made a trip over to the National Weather Service, to meet up with their lead Meteorologist Tyler Castillo who said the waterspouts that could be spotted from Padre Island were short lived.
"We saw a video going around this morning, where there was three of them," Castillo said. "It was really hard to catch those on radar because they are short lived. So between radar spans we can see them dissipate before we even catch them."
This explains, why there wasn't a marine warning sent out. According to Castillo, they are generally harmless, but that's not always the case.
"They can pose harm and damage to boaters/mariners out there and if they move inland we will issue a tornado warning because they can move inland and cause damage to docks, boats and houses on The Island," he said.
Castillo says the National Weather Service works very closely with the Coast Guard in case they need to issue a special marine warning.
Those warnings can then be broadcast to mariners by radio from the Coast Guard.
"Switch over to 22 Alpha that’s where that full broadcast goes where we give in depth notifications of what’s going on, where it’s going to go,” USCG Incident Management Divisions Chief Lt. Alexis Williams said.
Williams said these waterspouts typically happen more off shore and advised boaters to stay in their boats and not to go toward them.
"Again, general boat safety, make sure your wearing your life jackets, you have a way to communicate with the Coast Guard," she said. "If you are out there and get caught in it we will come and get you, but we need to know your in distress, so having a way to tell us you need us and where you are is the most important thing."
Here are some pictures and videos sent in by viewers as the waterspouts were visible:
Friend of the show Mrs. Krystie Kobos sent this shocking video into the station. It offers an up-close look at the spout and captures some people's reaction to seeing the unique weather event.
Tennyson Trevino sent in this photo from her father-in-law, Ted Trevino, who was out fishing on the water when he saw the waterspout. You can see three different spirals coming down from the clouds.
Multi-skilled Journalist Lexis Greene also sent in some images depicting the spout observed early Tuesday morning.
This video of the spouts shows at least two different columns coming from the sky.
These pictures were sent in from the Park Road 22 area as one of our viewers was turning onto Hwy. 361:
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