LANDSPOUT | IAS GYAN

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Context: A landspout emerged in Watrous, a small town in Canada.

About:

Landspout is a term created by atmospheric scientist Howard B. Bluestein in 1985 for a kind of tornado not associated with a mesocyclone.
The Glossary of Meteorology defines a landspout as a colloquial expression describing tornadoes occurring with a parent cloud in its growth stage and with its vorticity originating in the boundary layer.
The parent cloud does not contain a preexisting mid-level mesocyclone. The landspout was so named because it looks like "a weak Florida Keys waterspout over land.
Landspouts are typically weaker than mesocyclone-associated tornadoes spawned within supercell thunderstorms, in which the strongest tornadoes form.

Characteristics:

Landspouts are a type of tornado that forms during the growth stage of a cumulus congestus or occasionally a cumulonimbus cloud when an updraft stretches boundary layer vorticity upward into a vertical axis and tightens it into a strong vortex.
These generally are smaller and weaker than supercell tornadoes and do not form from a mesocyclone or pre-existing rotation in the cloud. Because of this lower depth, smaller size, and weaker intensity, landspouts are rarely detected by Doppler weather radar (NWS).
Landspouts share a strong resemblance and development process to that of waterspouts, usually taking the form of a translucent and highly laminar helical tube.
Landspouts are considered tornadoes since a rapidly rotating column of air is in contact with both the surface and a cumuliform cloud.
Not all landspouts are visible, and many are first sighted as debris swirling at the surface before eventually filling in with condensation and dust.
Orography can influence landspout (and even mesocyclone tornado) formation.