Freak water tornado hits Wicklow coastal town of Bray- VIDEO

Witnesses catch image on video and film

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A screen shot from footage of the over water tornado reported off the Wicklow coast on Saturday

Photo by Image: East Coast Kayaks

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A freak water tornado hit the coastal town of Bray in County Wicklow on Saturday.

Reports say that the weather phenomenon, also known as a sea spout, occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud formation.

Witness Chris Ryan said: “It gained in strength as it moved over the water, with a waterspout all the way up to a high cloud belt.

“It reached landfall at the foot of Bray Head, where it turned green for a second and then dissipated.”

Ireland’s national weather service Met Eireann said it has no record of a tornado but acknowledged that ‘the right conditions existed for one’.

Sea spouts do not suck up water and the funnel cloud is water droplets formed by condensation.
They are most usually associated with active weather fronts and can appear at during thunder, lightening or strong winds.

Witnesses reported seeing the vortex close to Bray Head just before 7am on Saturday morning while Aoife McNulty of the Bray Dolphin Watch caught an image of the tornado at Bray Head.
Many of the witnesses thought the sea spout was a twister.

A hailstorm at the same time led to dangerous conditions for drivers.

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