Photo of USS Floyd B Parks courtesy of ; www.navsource.org

The Parks was sailing typhoon evasion. Typhoon evasion is a naval tactic in which ships at sea sail around the perimeter of the storm in a clockwise direction, attempting to miss the brunt of the storm by sailing clear of it while sailing "upwind" of it.

While we were still on the "front" quadrant of the storm, we were sailing beneath the clouds blowing out of the Northeast of the eye wall. That is the most powerful area of any tropical cyclone. As we sailed in the rough seas, we were standing two-hour watches instead of the usual four-hour watches. I was standing port side lookout when I spotted something odd looking.

The odd looking phenomenon was a very thin, ropy funnel cloud descending from the base of what appeared to ba a rotating wall cloud. Having lived in the infamous "Tornado Alley" region of the US all my life, I knew what I was seeing. I didn't report it to the officer of the deck immediately, but I watched it with growing fascination.

As the funnel developed, I saw the swirl of water and mist form below it indicating that the vortex of rising air had contacted the surface, even though the funnel was yet at some distance above. At the time the funnel cloud itself became a solid waterspout, sucking ocean water up the vortex, two more funnels appeared to either side of the first.

I had seen multiple-vortex tornadoes before and knew they could be the most powerful and devastating. I then turned back toward the pilot house door and shouted, "Any of you guys ever seen a triple waterspout before?"

The officer of the deck beat everyone else to the door even though his duty station was farthest from where I was. He took one look and said, "Holy cow! Those are big ones!"

I looked back and all three spouts were on the water and almost equal in width. By this time they were each quite strong and looked like three gray stone columns standing in the water. there was no discernable movement yet, but I knew they were not standing still.

Just as everyone who was able to come to the door was goggling at the awesome sight, an intense electrical display broke out. The flashes of lightning around the funnels was very intense and the flashes were extremely close together in time as well. The lightning seemed to build to a crescendo and then slightly taper off.

As suddenly as the lightning had become intense, it just as suddenly tapered off. then, a brillliant ball of blue-white light appeared at the base of the main cloud. It seemed to orbit the waterspouts in two and a half oval-shaped orbits. Then, the ball descended swiftly down toward the surface. When it reached the surface, we could hear a sizzling sound and could see steam rising off the water in the wake of the ball. It zoomed away from the funnels roughly to the North, shooting past our bow at a distance of maybe a mile. It slowed as it sped along the water, as though friction was putting on the brakes. It began to shrink. As it shrank, it slowed even more. Finally, the ball exploded with a thunderclap that seemed much quieter than normal.

We turned our attention back to the spouts, only to see them rapidly dissipate. Once again, the stormy sea was what one would expect from a nearby typhoon. No more waterspouts were sighted while we sailed on out of harm's way. That was also the last ball lightning I have ever seen. I have heard anecdotes about ball lightning being associated with tornadoes, but none of them has ever been more than hearsay.

The location was in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 16 degrees North and 157 degrees West. That is somewhere between Midway Island and Guam, along the main sea lane; It was over open tropical water, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. The storm had plenty of time to build and was already a category five typhoon. Our anemometer broke in the gales and we were not even inside the actual storm's perimeter.

- FTGSN Randy Holley, U. S. Navy, aboard; U.S.S. Floyd B. Parks, DD884. The exact date was never recorded and I have forgotten exactly when it occurred. I am certain it was during the month of August, 1972.

A larger version can be found at 'Citadel Of The Sciences Of Nature' (Italy) www.astrogeo.va.it/immagini/cielo/giudici.htm

Ern,

Thank you for asking (regarding my BL experience). I am glad to offer my account, even if it is only anecdotal and not verifiable at present. I will attempt to gain access to the ship's log. It would be nice to finally document the experience. Otherwise, since there are no photos and no films, I have only my memory of the event.

(Regarding the waterspouts photo - above) ....Notice how evenly spaced those four are. The three I saw were spaced like that. They were much larger at their peak, though.

....FTGSN. FT Stands for Fire control Technician. These are the people who control the firing of the guns and missiles to assure accuracy. The G stands for gun to differentiate the gun controllers from the missile controllers. The SN stands for Seaman, my rank at the time. I was just a few days short of attaining the rank of Petty Officer.

Randy Holley

Water Twisters (Waterspouts), The Weather Doctor Almanac. Very good Info & photos.

Tornadoes and Ball Lightning, Edward Lewis.

Gorgons, Tornadoes and Plasmoid Phenomena, Edward Lewis.

NOAA Photo Library.