A number of waterspouts have formed across the Mediterranean in recent days, causing damage to busy coastal areas and marinas.

Two ‘water whirlwinds’ crashed into the south-west coast of Turkey yesterday, damaging several yachts and cars in Marmaris Yacht Marina. The heavy winds also caused minor to mid-level damage to piers and walls within the facility. No injuries have been reported; an alert was sounded to warn people in the immediate vicinity that the extreme weather event was taking place.

According to observers, the tornado-like waterspouts passed yesterday afternoon (21^st November) with an interval of 40 minutes.

A number of people uploaded videos of the waterspouts to Twitter.

Bu da hortumun kendisi.
Geçmiş olsun! pic.twitter.com/lCeirTbO0s

— Eyyup KARACA. (@eypkrc) November 21, 2018

The incident comes shortly after a similar waterspout crashed into the southern Italian city of Salerno. Locals filmed the vortex edging into the port’s harbour.

There have been no reports of injuries, but a number of freight containers were damaged.

View this post on Instagram

Tromba d'aria a Vietri sul Mare pochi minuti fa. Non ho mai visto una scena del genere. #ilmeteo #vietrisulmare

A post shared by Antonio Stanzione (@antoniostan37) on Nov 20, 2018 at 6:28am PST

What are waterspouts?

Waterspouts are very similar to tornadoes, but form over water when cool and unstable air moves over warmer waters and turns into a spinning column of water. Once they pass over solid ground, they tend to disperse relatively quickly.

Sign up to our newsletter to get the best of Yachting Pages delivered direct to your inbox every month.