Waterspouts, great towers of spinning water, were spotted off the Kenosha, Wisconsin coast Thursday, September 12.

A police officer, Michael Madsen of the Kenosha Police Department, snapped a picture of two gigantic waterspouts off the coast of Lake Michigan, simultaneously reporting the events to dispatch.

Waterspouts are merely funnel clouds that form on a body of water-a lake, an ocean, the sea-and are commonly developed during a thunderstorm. However, they are significantly weaker than their destructive land cousins, the tornados, and are more common in areas that have tropical climates. The Great lakes may not technically count as being in a tropical climate, but water spouts are known to appear in the vicinity mostly during fall, which is when the cold air sweeps over the warm lake water. Last year was a record year for waterspout sightings on the Great Lakes, where as much as 186 waterspouts were recorded.

News reports have stated that the relatively strong storms in the Kenosha area are what have created Thursday's waterspouts-a small, skinny one, and a larger one-with the former seeming to move southwards to Waukegan, a city that sat nearby. Its movement alerted the Kenosha Unified School District, which began emergency weather procedures, they ultimately decided that the spout was of no danger, and students had to slink back, dejected, into their classrooms.

Despite being the wimpier relative of the tornado, and forming on water usually miles away from land, waterspouts can still become dangerous to humans-swimmers, aircraft, boaters, people living very near bodies of water.

In fact, Chicago's National Weather Service chose to act with caution, sending out a warning for mariners on or near the Lake Michigan shore, encouraging boaters to "seek safe harbor immediately."

Some waterspouts had been severe back in the day, known for capsizing ships and boats, leading to its passengers and crew drowning, the most dangerous of which being former tornadoes which technically turn into waterspouts once they move onto water.