Several “scary-looking” so-called “steamnadoes” have been spotted on lakes in Texas as the state faces a deadly winter storm.
A video shared on Facebook by the US National Weather Service Fort Worth showed towering tornado-like steam vortices spiraling into the air above Lake Lewisville, a dozen miles north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
The agency said it had received several reports of the weather phenomenon on lakes across North and Central Texas, and reassured locals they did not pose a threat to public safety.
“These occur when very cold Arctic air moves over still-warm lake waters, along with a favorably moist and unstable low-level atmosphere, to create steam that can rotate and rise upward into the clouds,” the weather service wrote in its post on Facebook.
“Although very impressive and scary looking, they are thankfully harmless!”
Steamnadoes are also known as “steam spouts”, or “steam devils”, and can stretch more than 1500 feet high. They are sometimes confused with waterspouts, which also occur over bodies of water, but are distinct weather phenomena. They usually only last for a few minutes.
The tornadoes come as North Texas cities face multiple inches of snow due to the extreme Arctic blast sweeping across much of the eastern half of the country, bringing a mix of sleet, freezing rain, and snow. The weather system has severely disrupted both air and road travel and left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity, particularly across southeastern states.
Winter Storm Fern has killed two people in Texas: one in Austin, where an as-yet unidentified man was found dead in a gas station parking lot, and a horror sledding accident in Frisco on Sunday, where a 16-year-old girl died when her sled hit a curb and collided with a tree, according to Fox 4 News.
More than a dozen others have died across the country, including five who were caught outside in New York City, and eight in a plane crash in Maine.
The storm is expected to cost the country more than $100 billion.
