630 pm CDT Saturday August 18 2012
From roughly 1000 am to 1050 am CDT, there were numerous waterspouts sited over Lake Michigan roughly midway between Milwaukee WI and Holland Michigan. Looking at a combination of radar images at 1000 am CDT from the Milwaukee Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (FAA radar in Racine County) and visible satellite imagery, it appears that the most likely location of these images from a ship captain are roughly 57 miles southeast of the Milwaukee International Airport.
Below is an image of 5 waterspouts at the same time and a funnel cloud, courtesy of a Tweet by Eric Treece
The 2nd image is a combination of KMKE Terminal Doppler Radar and visible imagery at 1000 am CDT Saturday morning.
For scientific information on waterspout formation over the Great Lakes, click here. This link was in a Tweet by @TomPurdyWI.
Jeff Craven, Science and Operations Officer
National Weather Service Milwaukee/Sullivan WI