A ‘Tornadic Waterspout’ Likely Sank a Billionaire’s Yacht Near Sicily. Here’s What That Means

The Phoenicians, who sailed the Mediterranean Sea 3,000 years ago, often used a stretch of water east of Palermo, Sicily, as a safe harbor. The area is protected from the strong, cold winds that blow southeast out of France. More recently, the anchorage has become a haven for billionaires and their yachts. But that safety was shattered this week with the sudden sinking of tech magnate Mike Lynch’s yacht, the Bayesian.

Around 4 a.m. local time on Monday, a sudden and violent storm rocked the calm waters. Local residents tell the New York Times’ Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced that the storm brought some of the strongest winds they’d ever experienced—it “felt like an earthquake.”

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Of the 22 people aboard, local responders rescued 15, recovered six bodies—including Lynch’s on Thursday—and are still searching for his 18-year-old daughter.

Fabio Genco, head of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services, was one of the local responders who treated the survivors. “They told me that suddenly they found themselves catapulted into the water without even understanding how they had got there,” he says to NBC News’ Claudia Rizzo, Claudio Lavanga and Yuliya Talmazan. “The whole thing seems to have lasted from three to five minutes.”

Meteorologists have since suggested the ship was sunk by a spinning column of air and moisture called a “tornadic waterspout.” The extreme weather phenomenon is brought about by warm sea surface temperatures during a storm.

This powerful event lasted just minutes and hit only a small area, sparing a boat moored just a short distance from the Bayesian yacht. The waterspout’s sudden onset would have caught the crew by surprise, especially at such an early hour, experts say. “Episodes of such speed and intensity mean that even if you are prepared, it is difficult to react in time,” Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, tells the Guardian’s Angela Giuffrida.

Waterspouts tend to form above warmer waters, and their cylindrical structures take shape as rising humid air is spun into a vortex by incoming winds. Intense tornadic waterspouts, like the one that sank the Bayesian, occur in association with severe thunderstorms. They are “often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail and frequent dangerous lightning,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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While predicting any individual waterspout is nearly impossible, since it’s such a small phenomenon, scientists can use models to foresee the conditions under which they’re likely to occur. Meteorologists look for warm, moist air, changing wind and an instigating factor like a cold front that can set off the storm. This combination of conditions is becoming more common in a changing climate that’s warming with the emissions from burning fossil fuels.

For the last two months, the region where the Bayesian sank has experienced extreme heat. Sea surface temperatures have hit 86 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 5.4 degrees above average. “With a high sea-surface temperature (as in the case of a heatwave), there is more energy for storms,” Bogdan Antonescu, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Bucharest in Romania, says to the Conversation’s Jack Marley.

This weekend, a burst of cold air broke the heat and brought heavy thunderstorms to Sicily. With the warm water below, conditions were ripe for a disastrous waterspout.

“Sea temperatures of three degrees higher means an enormous quantity of energy for storms,” Mercalli tells the Guardian. “And when cold air arrives, it’s explosive.”

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Rudy Molinek is Smithsonian magazine's 2024 AAAS Mass Media Fellow.