Towering water twister appears off Portarlington

Keen weather watchers were shocked to see a wet and wild twister off the Bellarine Peninsula on Thursday afternoon. WATCH THE VIDEO.

Keen weather watchers were shocked to see a wet and wild twister off the Bellarine Peninsula on Thursday afternoon.

Just after 1pm the waterspout appeared across the sky near Portarlington.

Curlewis local Lisa Sutherland was out for an afternoon stroll with her partner when she turned around to see the imposing column of water.

“I just turned around and I was like ‘oh my god, there’s a twister’ and he’s like ‘no there isn’t’ and he sort of kept walking,” she said.

But he quickly turned around to witness the lofty sight.

Ms Sutherland said she was “very shocked” to see it, before she took out her camera to film the phenomena.

“That doesn’t happen every day, I didn’t think it would be a full one,” she said.

“I just thought maybe it’s just a little bit coming from the sky, because you just don’t see that stuff around here.

“And then when I sort of composed myself that tiny bit, I was like, oh, actually that’s a full one.

“Then we moved around and you can see the full thing, so yeah, it was pretty cool.”

The waterspout disappeared as quickly as it materialised, only lasting a few minutes.

Ms Sutherland said that some excited weather watchers drove down to the beach to get a good view of the twister.

“But by the time they got there it was gone,” she said.

TV presenter and radio host Jacqui Felgate posted the wild weather on her Instagram account.

Originally published as Towering water twister appears off Portarlington