The Show

Waterspouts and tornadoes are qualitatively similar, differing only in certain quantitative aspects: tornadoes are usually more intense, move faster, and have longer lifetimes—especially maxi-tornadoes. Tornadoes are associated with intense, baroclinic (frontal), synoptic-scale disturbances with attendant strong vertical wind shear, while waterspouts are associated with weak, quasibarotropic disturbances (weak thermal gradients) and consequent weak vertical wind shear