Meghan and Matthew Presutti hoped to spend a quiet Friday working from their beach home in Mantoloking.

For the most part, they did.

Until the funnel-shaped cloud grew outside their window as they ate lunch.

"At first I thought, 'What an unusual cloud.' Then I realized it wasn't a cloud," said Meghan.

As the funnel cloud hovered in the water about 500 yards from their home, Meghan and Matthew grabbed their cellphones and started recording from a third-floor balcony.

The waterspout popped up shortly after 1 p.m. in the ocean off Route 35 near The Ocean Club Condominiums in Brick.

Waterspout over the ocean off Normandy Beach moments ago. (Photo: JSHN contributor Michaela Murray-Nolan) pic.twitter.com/0MUlycGqr6 — JSHN (@JSHurricaneNews) July 6, 2018

The rain had just let up when the funnel cloud appeared. It changed shapes several times and hovered offshore before sliding southeast out to sea in under 10 minutes, they said.

"It started out as this wedge shape," said Matthew. "Then it went to a funnel shape and changed several times. Finally, it was a tight funnel shape. It was out there for a good five to seven minutes."

The couple shot several videos, some of which they uploaded to social media.

"It didn't make any noise. It was weird," Matthew said.

The couple said they have never seen a tornado or water spout in New Jersey.

"I've seen a wall of water rising up during a storm, but never this," said Meghan, who grew up on the Jersey Shore.

"We've only seen these on TV," she said.

Rotation seen on radar

The National Weather Service's regional office in New Jersey said Friday they are checking into the waterspout sighting but have not yet confirmed it.

"There was some rotation" seen on radar at the time the waterspout was reported on social media, according to Trent Davis, a weather service meteorologist. "The rotation was pretty weak, but it would be enough to cause one."

The rotation was spotted on radar between 1:17 p.m. and 1:27 p.m., moving from the west-northwest to the east-southeast off Normandy Beach in northern Ocean County, Davis said.

The weather service describes a waterspout as "a whirling column of air and water mist." Essentially, it's a tornado that forms over water.

"They have the same characteristics as a land tornado," the weather service says in a fact sheet on its website. "They are associated with severe thunderstorms, and are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning."

At about 2 p.m. on Friday, the weather service office in Mount Holly issued a special marine warning, alerting boaters about the possibility of waterspouts forming off the Jersey Shore as thunderstorms were moving through the area.

"Waterspouts can easily overturn boats and create locally hazardous seas," the warning noted. "Small craft could be damaged in briefly higher winds and suddenly higher waves."

NJ Advance Media staff writer Len Melisurgo contributed to this report.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.