A white squall is a sudden and violent windstorm at sea which is not accompanied by the black clouds generally characteristic of a squall. The name refers to the white-capped waves and broken water, its meager warning to any unlucky seaman caught in its path. White squalls are rare at sea, but common on the Great Lakes of North America.
A white squall is the culprit of many sea stories and blamed for quite a few tragedies. It is described as a sudden increase in wind velocity in tropical and sub-tropical waters, and lacks the usual dark, ominous squall clouds. The white squall, still thought by some to be myth, may be a microburst.
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Famous quotes containing the word white:
“Native always means people who belong somewhere else, because they had once belonged somewhere. That shows that the white race does not really think they belong anywhere because they think of everybody else as native.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)