A white squall is a sudden and violent windstorm at sea which is not accompanied by the black clouds generally characteristic of a squall. ... White squalls are rare at sea, but common on the Great Lakes of North America.

How common are white squalls?

White squalls are rare, and even when they do occur, they're unpredictable, which makes them devilishly difficult to study. There's slim odds someone with the proper scientific equipment will be in the right place at the right time to measure one of these events.

Is White Squall true?

The first two-thirds of White Squall, the new adventure movie starring Jeff Bridges, is a coming-of-age tale about a group of teen-agers on a long voyage in the Caribbean and South Pacific. Based on a true story, the youths were to spend a school year studying and working aboard a two-masted vessel, the Albatross.