what natural forces create whirlpools?

Question

my 8 year old asked me the other day how a whirlpool was made

Answer 1

A whirlpool is produced by ocean tides


A whirlpool is a large, swirling body of water produced by ocean tides. In popular imagination, but only rarely in reality, they can have the dangerous effect of destroying boats. In the 8th century, Paul the Deacon, who had lived among the Belgii, described tidal bores and the maelstrom for a Mediterranean audience, unused to such violent tidal surges:

Not very far from this shore... toward the western side, on which the ocean main lies open without end, is that very deep whirlpool of waters which we call by its familiar name "the navel of the sea." This is said to suck in the waves and spew them forth again twice every day...
They say there is another whirlpool of this kind between the island of Britain and the province of Galicia, and with this fact the coasts of the Seine region and of Aquitaine agree, for they are filled twice a day with such sudden inundations that any one who may by chance be found only a little inward from the shore can hardly get away.
I have heard a certain high nobleman of the Gauls relating that a number of ships, shattered at first by a tempest, were afterwards devoured by this same Charybdis. And when one only out of all the men who had been in these ships, still breathing, swam over the waves, while the rest were dying, he came, swept by the force of the receding waters, up to the edge of that most frightful abyss. And when now he beheld yawning before him the deep chaos whose end he could not see, and half dead from very fear, expected to be hurled into it, suddenly in a way that he could not have hoped he was cast upon a certain rock and sat him down. — Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, i.6
The vast majority of whirlpools are not very powerful. More powerful ones are more properly termed maelstroms. Vortex is the proper term for any whirlpool that has a downdraft. (Technically, these approximate to a 'free vortex', in which the tangential velocity (v) increases as the centre line is approached, so that the angular momentum (rv) is constant).

Very small whirlpools can easily be seen when a bath or a sink is draining, but these are produced in a very different manner from those in nature. Smaller whirlpools also appear at the base of many waterfalls. In the case of powerful ones like Niagara Falls, these whirlpools can be quite powerful.

The most powerful whirlpools are created in narrow shallow straits with fast flowing water. The Moskstraumen off the Lofoten islands in Norway is generally considered the world's most powerful whirlpool, along with Saltstraumen which reaches speeds of 40 km/h. The Meilnort has been measured with a speed of the water current of up to 27.7 km/h, and the Old Sow has been measured with a speed of up to 27.6 km/h . The Naruto whirlpool has a speed of 20 km/h. Powerful whirlpools have killed unlucky seafarers, but their power tends to be exaggerated in fiction. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a whirlpool. Tales like those by Paul the Deacon, Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe are entirely fictional.

Answer 2

Whirlpools are brought about by 2 currents flowing by 1 yet another in opposite guidelines. because the currents go by 1 yet another, friction between the perimeters in contact reason the water on the contacting edges to decelerate and that creates the swirling. The extra it swirls the swifter it strikes and the extra of each opposite contemporary receives stuck up contained in the whirlpool. also locate small whirlpools (eddies) forming even as water flows previous a wide merchandise - the water on the leeward part is transferring slower than the water passing the item and also you get an similar reaction as both opposing currents.

Answer 3

air...
make an experiment, drink a lot of milk, eat cabbage and some bananas...then drink cold water..... wait for a while
then have Ur own Whirlpool in the bath or even in the bucket....
;D...he he he...sorry, had to write that...

Answer 4

whirlpools, off the coast of Japan are caused by whales swimming in circles to avoid the factory ships that hunt them...
..smaller ones are actually caused by gas emissions from sardines as they swim in circles during their fertillity rites....my dad reckons they're caused by the air-vents from atlantis....i think
he's rong as the air vents would only cause bubbles...yeah?

Answer 5

Tornados taht land in water not land

Answer 6

read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool

Answer 7

usually the resulting of conflicting tides

Answer 8

It is done by wind i believe.

Answer 9

hahahahaha 2 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!