3 hurt as waterspout sends beach bouncy castle into the air (video)

A watersput coming in off the ocean lifted a bouncy castle with three children inside on a Florida beach, sending it flying over palm trees, across a car park and over four lanes of traffic.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, all three children were injured but conscious when they were take to hospital.

It's thought the children may have fallen out when the bouncy house first flipped over.

News site WTVR.com reports that one of the three children was seriously injured.

Three Hurt as Waterspout Sends Bouncy House Flying at Florida Beach

Onlookers at the beach managed to capture footage of the incident on Monday.

Witness Burt Osteen said: "It came right over us. We laid on the ground; we were right in front of the bounce house. We watched it pick up the bounce house and snap a basketball hoop."

According to Wikipedia, a waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water.

While it is often weaker than most of its land counterparts, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur. Most waterspouts do not suck up water; they are small and weak rotating columns of air over water.

While waterspouts form mostly in the tropics and subtropical areas,[1] other areas also report waterspouts, including Europe, New Zealand, the Great Lakes and Antarctica.

%VIRTUAL-TripAdvisorWidget%