HAMBURG, N.Y. — What you're seeing is not a tornado, it's actually a waterspout, whose funnel was lingering over land. And the ICWR, which stands for the International Centre for Waterspout Research, a group of people fascinated with waterspouts, need your help to learn more. 

Self-proclaimed weather nerd Steven Madsen had a brush with a waterspout back in July while watching Mother Nature’s show at the Lake Erie Seaway Trail Center along Route 5 in Hamburg.

“We were having a blast. My son, his biggest fear was losing his hat. It blew out onto Route 5 and started getting run over. And he was really upset about that,” Madsen recalled.

Madsen was with his son and nephews in a now viral video.

“Actually, the winds were really calm before it came onshore and then it just spun up for a few seconds,” Madsen recalled.

It caught the attention of the IWCR.

“We established ourselves back in 2008 and it's growing around the world,” Wade Szilagyi, founder and director of the International Centre for Waterspout Research, said.

Szilagyi spent 35 years with the Meteorological Service of Canada. He says IWCR is a team of meteorologists, research scientists, storm chasers and, really, anyone who is interested in waterspouts. The goal is to promote awareness and research.

“Since we've started our research, the one thing that we've realized is that they're more numerous and more extensive than we previously thought,” Szilagyi said.

They also occur outside of the traditional waterspout season, which is thought to be August to October. Lake Erie gets about 130 on average a year. The more the merrier, in terms of collecting data. That’s where you come in.

“Take your cell phone, and if you see one at a safe distance, take a picture of it and then post to our Twitter site or our Facebook page,” Szilagyi said.

From there, your data goes into a global map.

So what causes this natural phenomenon? Spectrum News 1 meteorologist Dan Russell explains in a bit more details.

“Warm air rises into that cold air,” Russell said. “That's what creates weather. And ultimately, if we get enough instability, where we get enough of a contrast between that cold air and warm body of water, that produces enough instability, as that air rises, it spins a twist thanks to the earth rotating and ultimately translates to the waterspouts and even some lake effect rain moving inland.”

Back to the lake, and that Bills hat.

“We recovered it afterwards,” Madsen smiled. “So, it was the one I'm wearing right now, it's a good luck, good luck charm.”  

The data you send also helps update the waterspout forecast model is used by the National Weather Service.

And if you ever find yourself on a boat in the path of a waterspout, Szilagyi says to turn that your boat 90 degrees or perpendicular the motion of a waterspout. Don’t try to outrun it.