Possible waterspout spotted over Sebago Lake [Video]

SEBAGO, Maine — NEWS CENTER Maine received several videos from viewers about a possible waterspout tornado over Sebago Lake Tuesday night. This launched a mini investigation by the weather team and National Weather Service meteorologists in an effort to figure out what we were seeing.

The Sebago Lake region is a hot-spot for tornado activity in Maine. It is in the “perfect” location of being far enough away from stable marine air along the coast, and the convergence of a late day sea breeze and thunderstorms moving in from the west. That combination creates a low level shear, which is helpful when creating tornadoes. 

Initially, we thought this might be something called “scud.” Scud refers to fragments of clouds that hang off the base of a larger cloud. They can look like funnel clouds …