2018 visuals of a Waterspout captured in Pune is shared as clouds pulling water from the Ganges in Allahabad - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 2, 2022
A post which shows a cylindrical shape cloud formation is widely shared on social media. The post claims that clouds are pulling water from the River Ganga in Sangham, Prayagraj. Let’s fact-check the claims.
Claim: Clouds pulling water from the Ganga river in Prayagraj.
Fact: This is an old video from 2018, and the phenomenon shown in the video occurred in Pune. This phenomenon is known as Waterspout, and usually occurs in tropical conditions. Waterspout does not suck water from the waterbody as the post claims. Hence the claims made in the post are MISLEADING.
A reverse image search with the screenshots of the video led us to a YouTube post which contains the same video as in the now viral post. The post description says that this happened in Pune near Nazre Dam.
After searching the internet with relevant keywords, we found a few news reports that confirm this. As per these reports,this phenomenon had happened at Nazre Dam in Pune. These news reports from 2018 can be read here, here and here. Additionally, searching on the internet to see if such an incident had recently happened in Prayagraj has not yielded any relevant results.
Are the clouds really sucking water?
The viral post claims that in the video, the clouds are sucking water from the river. To understand this, we searched the internet to discover this phenomenon. The naturally occurring phenomenon seen in the video is known as Waterspout. Multiple videos and images on the internet match the occurrence shown in the video, and they are videos of waterspouts formed over various waterbodies across the globe. These videos can be seen here, here and here. National Geographic states,’ A waterspout is a column of cloud-filled wind rotating over a body of water.’ An article published on their website mentions, ‘Despite its name, a waterspout is not filled with water from the ocean or lake.’
Further, it reads that Waterspout descends from a cumulus cloud. It does not “spout” from the water. From this evidence, we can conclude that water is not getting sucked by the clouds in the video. Further information about Waterspout and its types can be found here and here.
To summarise, this video which shows a waterspout like incident is not from Allahabad; it is an old video captured in 2018 at Pune.