From AMS Glossary
- (Rare.) A tornado.
- Colloquial expression describing tornadoes occurring with a parent cloud in its growth stage and with its vorticity originating in the boundary layer.
The parent cloud does not contain a preexisting midlevel mesocyclone. The landspout was so named because it looks like a weak, Florida Keys waterspout over land.
See nonsupercell tornado.
Bluestein, H. B. 1985. The formation of a "landspout" in a "broken-line" squall line in Oklahoma. Preprints, 14th Conf. on Severe Local Storms. Indianapolis, . 267–270.