Technically, when a water spout hits land it becomes a tornado.
My wife and I were at Ohio's Cedar Point amusement park back in 1998, waiting in line for their 200-foot drop tower, when we could hear screaming from some of the riders at the top, pointing north towards Lake Erie/Sandusky Bay. Everyone turned around to see a towering funnel cloud heading our way; panic ensued, with most of the crowd running to seek shelter, and some walking towards the cloud trying to take pictures.
They opened the employee cafeteria for guests and that's where we went until it seemed all was clear. Turns out it did make land, becoming an actual tornado for a minute or two, tearing off a couple roofs along the shore. It was a brutally hot, humid, unsettled July day; after we left the cafeteria I looked up at the sky to watch the clouds above moving in circles, and every few minutes a little funnel would form, start to drop down, and then dissipate. Pretty freaky.
On our way back to the hotel to take a break the skies opened up for 30 minutes of an absolute monsoon. Then it cleared; the temps dropped from 90 to 60 within a couple of hours, and the sky turned the deepest shade of blue, almost purple, with massive pure white fair weather clouds floating by.
On a much more disturbing note, my parents' best friends were in the Windsor (Ontario) Curling Club in 1974 on the first day of the Super Outbreak, or "Day of 100 Tornadoes". One tore through there (they described it as "louder than a freight train") killing nine people (they escaped unharmed).
