question about a picture

[sammy12]

You guys seem to be really knowledgable about all sorts of weather so I hope you can answer this question. I was wondering if you could tell me if this picture was real? Me and a friend of mine have been debating about this for months and we both have arguments for and against it. Is there any way to tell for sure?

http://www.weatherinasnap.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=14

[AJC3]

Short answer...It's real.

Long answer...It's real, HOWEVER it has been fraudulently/erroneously passed along through e-mail and the net as being various tornadoes.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/floridatornado.asp
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/sedalia.asp

The truth is that it's a picture of a lightning-illuminated waterspout (described as a "tornado over Lake Okeechobee") taken by Fred Smith in Okeechobee, FL on June 15, 1991. It graces the cover of the preprint volume for the 17th AMS Conference on Severe Local Storms (1993) and has been used elsewhere.

http://www.tornadoproject.com/Merchant2 ... de=Posters

[sammy12]

Thanks!

[Cyclone1]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Hurricane_Floyd_1999-09-14.jpg

This image of Hurricane Floyd shares a similar fate. It's been called Katrina, Frances, Al Gore called it Jeanne in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth", it's even been called the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami...

Speaking of Tsunami's, I've gotten emails with this image or a similar image attached...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Sandstorm.jpg/800px-Sandstorm.jpg

... they called it a picture taken 30 seconds before the 2004 IO Tsunami hit. It's an obvious sandstorm.