3-011-967 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Waterspout seen off Worthing on Sunday, August 21, 1864. Engraving from a sketch by the Rev. F. Piggott. 'The morning was very dull and thundery, attended with a few showers, and the lightning severe. The clouds were seen to be moving in all directions...[they] were seen to revolve in a circle, about half a mile in diameter, and gradually approach the centre, which descended, diminishing in size, till, when about 50 ft. from the surface of the sea, it increased, and united with a dense vapour arising from the water in the shape of a cone. The sea for a circle of 300 ft. was in a most disturbed state, the immense waves rolling to a centre and throwing up masses of foam. At 9.15 the waterspout broke, and an exceedingly heavy hailstorm attended its dissolution, some of the stones being about three quarters of an inch in diameter. The waterspout was distant from Worthing about two miles. The disturbed water travelled to the eastward at a rapid rate (nearly forty miles an hour)'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.