Rare Landspout Touches Down in Oklahoma, Captured on Video

Our neighbors in Oklahoma had some wild weather yesterday, and storm chaser Chad Casey was able to catch the moment a landspout touched down near Elmer.

What Exactly Is a Landspout?

Having spent five years in the Navy, I’m very familiar with waterspouts. However, I’ve heard the term landspout thrown around quite a bit lately and wasn’t sure what it was, so I googled it.

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Here’s how the National Weather Service (NWS) defines a landspout: 

Landspouts can occur in cumuliform clouds without the parent cloud rotating. Typically, these occur along weather boundary where air converges under weak vertical rotation. The convergence of air at the boundary forces it up forming a cloud and this updraft stretch the rotation increasing its spin.

Weaker Than a Tornado — But Still Scary

So basically, they’re typically a little weaker than a tornado, but much stronger than a dust devil. However, they’re able to produce the same amount of damage as an EF2 or EF3 tornado. So, you’ll want to steer clear of them. 

It also turns out that they’re not very common in this neck of the woods. That explains why I wasn’t sure what they were. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video of the landspout that was on the ground for more than 20 minutes, which I’m going to go out on a limb and assume didn’t do much damage, if any at all.