A steam devil is a small, weak whirlwind over water (or sometimes wet land) that has drawn fog into the vortex, thus rendering it visible. They form over large lakes and oceans during cold air outbreaks while the water is still relatively warm, and can be an important mechanism in vertically transporting moisture. They are a component of sea smoke. Smaller steam devils and steam whirls can form over geyser basins even in warm weather because of the very high water temperatures. Although observations of steam devils are generally quite rare, hot springs in Yellowstone Park produce them on a daily basis. Steam devils have only been reported and studied since the 1970s. They are weaker than waterspouts and distinct from them. The latter are more akin to weak tornadoes over water.
Naming Steam devils were first reported by Lyons and Pease in 1972 concerning their observations of Lake Michigan in January 1971. This month was a particularly cold one for Wisconsin (one of the coldest in the 20th century) which, combined with Lake Michigan staying mostly ice-free, produced good conditions for steam devil formation. Lyons and Pease named steam devils by comparison to the dust devils on land to which they have a comparable size and structure. They were also motivated by the need to distinguish steam devils from the much more powerful waterspout whose land equivalent is the tornado. Lyons and Pease wrote their article with the aim of persuading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to include steam devils in the International Field Year for the Great Lakes which was imminently to occur in 1972–1973.
Appearance Steam devils are vortices typically about 50 to 200 m (160 to 660 feet) in diameter, essentially vertical, and up to 500 m (1,600 feet) high. The general shape is like a small waterspout but they should not be considered related. Steam devils rotate with a cyclonic direction of motion, but not very fast or powerfully, usually just a few rotations per minute, and sometimes apparently not at all. There is usually a well-defined inner part of the rotating column of steam and a more ragged outer part from which clumps of steam often detach. Rather smaller steam devils can form over small lakes, especially the warm water in the hot springs of geyser basins. In these cases typical dimensions are 1 m (3+1⁄4 ft) or so diameter, but can vary from less than 0.1 to 2 m (3⁄8 to 6+1⁄2 ft), and a height of 2 to 30 m (6+1⁄2 to 98+3⁄8 ft) with a somewhat faster rotation of 60 rpm (1 Hz) or so. The central core of the steam devil can be clear, in the same sense that the centre of a dust devil is clear of dust. The core is around 10% of the width of the rotating column. The sky above the steam devils may be clear, or there may be cumulus clouds present. In some cases the steam devils may rise directly into the cumulus, in these cases the cumulus may actually be caused by the steam devils—see below. Steam devils are a rare and short-lived phenomenon, typically surviving no more than three or four minutes, and the smaller ones over hot springs dissipating in a matter of seconds. Steam devils are sometimes confused with waterspouts as they can occur over the water. Steam devils can become detached from their base and be blown downstream by the wind. On small bodies of water such as hot springs this can mean that the steam devil ends up over land away from the water altogether. Such steam devils continue to rotate even after they have become detached from the source of heat, but will soon dissipate. Very small steam devils may have a poorly defined column and no identifiable clear inner core. Such vortices are more properly called steam whirls by analogy with the dust whirls of land.
Formation A precondition for the formation of steam devils is the presence of a layer of moist air on the water with the misty air (called arctic steam fog) being drawn upwards into fog streamers (non-rotating columns of steam fog). For this to happen the body of water must be unfrozen, and thus relatively warm, and there must be some wind of cold, dry air to form the fog. The cold air is warmed by the water and is humidified by evaporation. The warmed air begins to rise, and as it does so is cooled adiabatically by the falling pressure causing the water vapour content to condense out into fog streamers. For steam devils to form the air above the body of water must be very cold, and a fairly brisk (over 3.2 km/h or 2 mph) wind of dry air needs to be blowing across the surface of the water. The temperature difference between the water and the air needs to be quite marked; the steam devils in figure 1 were forming with an air temperature of −21 °C (−6 °F) and a water temperature of 1 °C (33 °F)—a difference of 22 °C (39 °F). Under these conditions the air rises so energetically that the air flow becomes unstable and vortices start to form. Fog streamers drawn into the vortices render the vortices visible and they then become steam devils. The steam fog tends to form irregular hexagonal cells in the horizontal plane which are elongated in the direction of the wind. In this honeycomb arrangement, three cells meet at a junction, and it is in these places that the steam devils form. This effect of vortex formation at the vertices of hexagonal cells is an example of vertex vortices. The layer of cumulus seen above steam devils during cold air outbreaks on Lake Michigan and elsewhere may not be coincidental. Airborne radar studies during cold air outbreaks on the lake have shown that some steam devils penetrate through the thermal internal boundary layer (below which convective circulation takes place) and may be more significant for thermal mixing than normal convection, transporting moist air vertically above the convection boundary. The resulting large scale view is a layer of arctic steam fog close to the water surface, a layer of cumulus just above the convection boundary and a regular array of steam devils joining the two.
Occurrences
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