Claim: Video footage of Sri Lanka’s first-ever tornado.
Fact: This claim is false. Sri Lanka is not facing its first-ever tornado.
Several social media users are sharing a video footage showing what appears to be a massive tornado off the coast of an unidentifiable beach, with the caption, “Tornado first time in Sri Lanka.”
Among the many who shared the footage on TikTok was the handle @vlogstart, who wrote in Sinhala, “ලංකාවට තවත් අනතුරක්ද, ටොනාඩෝවල බලපෑමක්!”, (Sri Lanka under another threat, this time it’s tornadoes!)
We noticed these social media posts mainly on YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. Newschecker team also noticed that many users shared the same footage with sounds of thunder and people’s cries edited into the background audio. Similar posts can be found here, here, here, and here.
Fact Check/Verification
The Newschecker team first looked at reports about the current weather conditions in Sri Lanka. On November 28, 2024 the Meteorology Department of Sri Lanka issued a red warning for weather conditions including thunderstorms, showers, and strong winds for the days of 28, 29, and 30 November. Read the warning here.
The warning said that the conditions were due to a “deep depression over the southwest Bay of Bengal…located around 130 km northeast of Trincomalee and 150km east of Mullaittivu. It is likely to move slowly, north-northwestwards closer to the east coast of Sri Lanka and there is a possibility to intensify further.”
Other reports said that there was a possibility of this deep depression escalating into a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, but there were no mention of a tornado occurring in the Sri Lankan seas. Reports can be found here and here.
Thus, the Newschecker team concluded that there were no reports of a tornado in the current weather.
We then conducted reverse image searches on several keyframes of the viral video, and found that the video was from Point Pedro beach in the north. It was originally posted on Facebook on a page dedicated to the Point Pedro beach on November 9, 2022, and the caption specifies that the footage was obtained on October 30, 2022. This video’s sound includes people speaking in Tamil, and does not carry sounds of thunder or cries of people as in the viral footage. Watch the video here, archived link here.
On analysing the actual footage closely, we found that it was footage of a water spout and not a tornado as was being claimed. The footage is also similar to other videos of water spouts, which are not harmful and are regular on the country’s coasts. On September 22, 2023, for example, media reported on a similar water spout in Bambalapitiya area in the Western Province. Read the report here.
What is the difference between a water spout and a tornado?
According to The Comprehensive Glossary of Weather, a waterspout “normally refers to a small, relatively weak rotating column of air over water beneath a Cb or towering cumulus cloud. Waterspouts are most common over tropical or subtropical waters.”
A tornado, on the other hand, is:
“A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from the base of a thunderstorm. A condensation funnel does not need to reach to the ground for a tornado to be present; a debris cloud beneath a thunderstorm is all that is needed to confirm the presence of a tornado, even in the total absence of a condensation funnel.”
Conclusion
Thus, it is clear that the viral video claiming to show a tornado in Sri Lanka is old, and actually shows a water spout that happened in 2022 at Point Pedro.
Result: False
Our sources
Red warning on severe weather conditions due to a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal, published by the Meteorology Department of Sri Lanka, on November 28, 2024
News report about the severe weather conditions in Sri Lanka, by EconomyNext on November 27, 2024
News report about the severe weather conditions in Sri Lanka, by The Daily Mirror Sri Lanka on November 27, 2024
News report about the water spout spotted in Bambalapitiya, by HiruNews on September 23, 2023
Comprehensive Glossary of Weather by Michael Branick on www.geographic.org
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