Two people managed to catch a giant waterspout on camera in Alberta on Friday night.
Danielle Schreiner and Terry Rupp captured videos of a waterspout in Cold Lake, Alberta, roughly 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
“Oh my God!” a woman shouts in the video as a group of onlookers gathers near the shore.
The jaw-dropping natural phenomenon lasted about 10 minutes before dissipating.
Cold Lake cottager Ryan Baldwin said he’s seen a few waterspouts, but this one was “the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
“It only took about maybe 90 seconds for the sky to start spinning and then it just came down pretty quick,” he told CTV Edmonton.
The waterspout was one of three tornado touchdowns in northern Alberta on Friday. The other two occurred in Lac La Biche and Slave Lake.
There are two types of waterspouts, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Tornadic waterspouts are essentially tornadoes over water. They can form on land and move over the water or form directly top of the water.
Fair weather waterspouts usually form along a dark flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds and are generally not associated with thunderstorms. Fair weather waterspouts develop on the surface of the water and work their way upward.
Parts of northern Alberta were expecting more severe weather on Saturday. Environment Canada issued a number of severe thunderstorm warnings and watches, including for Lac La Biche and Cold Lake.
