STORM TRACK: January 31, 1985 (Volume 8 Issue 2)

Erik Rasmussen writes; "I caught a waterspout-tornado here on October 23. I was leaving for work about 9AM and saw a line of TCU (towering cumulus) extending from Biloxi out over the Gulf (I live on the beach highway in Gulfport). There was a very small, ragged lowering under one tower, and the whole situation seemd to resemble Golden's descriptions of incipient waterspouts. So I ran upstairs and grabbed my slide camera, but wasn't confident enough to take the movie camera. I drove east on Highway 90 for a few blocks, as a funnel became more defined offshore. I kept advancing from one pulloff to the next, shooting slides. Finally as the funnel neared the water and the spray sheath became more apparent, I began chasing down the beach on foot, in dress shoes and tie!! The waterspout churned toward shore, passing just west of the Beloxi lighthouse and marina, about one-half mile east of me. The spray sheath was about 10-15 feet high. It then crossed the beach with a fully developed, laminar tube funnel. It continued north across the busy four lane highway and then moved into a grove of trees. The funnel flared briefly, and the tornado dissipated without doing damage. What a fun chase!"

When Mr. Rasmussen is not cavorting along the beach in the rapture of a chase, he can be found resembling a Vice-President at Now Weather, Inc., a weather information company. They distribute weather analyses and forecasts through "high-tech graphics formats" and "develop state-of-the-art radar analyses and display systems" for the world meteorological community. "Currently, we are subcontracting with Enterprise Electronics for an analysis and display system for the Wuhan, P.R. China radar. To say the least, we are very busy, but it's a very interesting business."