‘Tornado on water’ tosses barrels, kayaks onto Milford beach

Video: Milford water spout caught on video

MILFORD — A waterspout that rose up in Long Island Sound on Sunday afternoon sent late-summer beachgoers and anglers scurrying.

The waterspout came ashore near Anchor Beach in the Woodmont section of the city, and tossed the borough’s new trash barrels into the parking lot of the adjoining apartment complex, witnesses said.

“It looked like a mini-tornado, from the ground up,’’ neighborhood resident Kerry Rowland said Tuesday. In a summer that has already seen a whale and a sea turtle pay visits, the waterspout “was a first for me,’’ Rowland said. “This was like a plastic grocery bag swirling in the wind, except it was picking up heavy objects.

“There were three little girls running off the beach, and one was crying because she had sand in her eyes, and I made sure they were OK,’’ Rowland said. “Then a trash barrel got tossed in the air and all the trash came flying out.’’

Richard Shain took video of the incident, marveling as two kayaks went flying past him while three gulls sat on the sand.

What Shain and Rowland observed is rare, said Ben Noll, a meteorologist with Accuweather Inc. “We may get one or two a year in Long Island Sound but they are out over open water and people don’t usually see them.

“Usually waterspouts form when a cold air mass moves over warm water,’’ he said. “But what happened Sunday is that you were in a prime zone of motion rising ahead of a storm.’’

And Rowland’s description of the waterspout as a tornado? “In layman terms I’d say that is accurate,’’ said Noll, the meteorologist. “It’s an intense vortex.’’

Waterspouts can bring with the high wind and waves, and occasionally lightning and even hail, according to the National Weather Service.

Waterspouts are most common over tropical or subtropical waters, according to the NWS web site. “But there is sufficient justification for calling virtually any rotating column of air a waterspout if it is in contact with a water surface,’’ the NWS said.

Read more about waterspouts here.