HP8 said:
Off-Topic: Can I still post one more question related to this type of question?
I'm not an expert on the forum rules, but I'm sure it would be fine.
About the original question, sorry for my last post. Reflecting on it, I see that it's an awful explanation.
A better way to explain it requires one perspective, that pressure energy is essentially internal kinetic energy (by "internal" I basically mean that the net velocity is zero) (It helps to visualize a bunch of atoms squeezed together and constantly bouncing around each other but never moving anywhere on the whole.)
This is my natural way of viewing pressure, I find it intuitively useful.
Now you can probably imagine that the only way to be in this state of nonzero pressure, is to have something "holding it together" (otherwise it would be like little balls that bounce apart)
So, in your problem, we have a little circle of that "something that holds it together" that is removed.
What will happen?
All of the pressure will "become" velocity. (Really, nothing is becoming anything new, it's just that the net result is no longer zero.)
Except, it won't be ALL of the pressure that becomes velocity, because there is still a little bit of "something that holds it together," namely, the air pressure is trying to keep the water in.
So you will have the (energy of the) velocity will be equal to the (energy of the) pressure minus the (energy of the) air pressure.
But we know, (I'm assuming you know) that the (energy of the) pressure is equal to the air pressure plus density*height*gravity so the "air pressure minus air pressure" part becomes zero, and you're left with the equation:
ρgh=\frac{ρv^2}{2}
(Which could be verbally interpreted as "gravitational potential energy = kinetic energy" but I think the pressure perspective is superior)