Six injured as tornado hits London

[Aquawind]

Wow.. seems kinda late in the year for Tornados in England.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A tornado hit a residential area of London on Thursday, injuring at least six people, according to ambulance service staff.

Police were alerted to the tornado in north-west London at around 11 a.m., a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.

One man was taken to hospital suffering from serious head injuries, and five people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and shock.

The storm, with winds of around 150 mph (240 kph), ripped roofs off some homes, tore down walls and trees, and left streets strewn with debris. One car was buried under fallen bricks, video footage from the scene showed.

"I could see a huge cloud rolling up the street, making this tremendous sound," resident Daniel Bidgood told the BBC. "I went to try to take a picture of it but a shower of debris smashed all the windows of my house."

Another eyewitness, Sally Johnson, said she thought she was going to die. "All the cars and the windows, everything (was) smashed in," she told Sky. "There's debris everywhere, you can hardly walk."

"It was like some sort of cyclone," said resident Tim Klotz.

"I looked up through a skylight and debris was falling through the air. I heard what seemed like large, clay dominoes falling, which I think were roof tiles," Klotz said.

Experts say that while Britain experiences more than 30 tornadoes a year, it is rare for them to cause damage on the scale seen in London on Thursday.

Local weather reports said warmer than normal temperatures this fall contributed to formation of the tornado.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12 ... index.html

[sunny]

I saw some pics of this - looks pretty bad.

From what I have read Paul, this is the time of year for tornado's in England. I've also been following some dialogue regarding the use of the term "mini" tornado in the U.K. IMO there is no such thing as a "mini" tornado. Perhaps P.K. can provide further insight into this though.

[gord]

We have had some very mobile weather here over the past few weeks. We have been plagued by a series of very deep low pressure systems coming in from the Atlantic. Each one is being blocked by high pressure over Europe which then sends them to the north. That leaves the UK on the east side of each system and left in a mild and fast south westerly flow.

Here in Staffordshire we've had very squallt and heavy showers and with very gusty winds move through all day. The sky has been looking so unstable all day that I'm not surpirsed something like this happened.

Its been a wild day here in the UK. Squally showers and thunderstorms, gusts over 70mph, mean winds around 50mph on coasts, a tornado in London.

The British weather forums have been lighting up with reports all day.

We're nowhere near any decent winter weather yet here in the UK...but all this wild weather will keep us busy while we wait!

[conestogo_flood]

Not too long ago wasn't England put under it's first tornado alert by the Met Office?

[P.K.]

From what I have read Paul, this is the time of year for tornado's in England. I've also been following some dialogue regarding the use of the term "mini" tornado in the U.K. IMO there is no such thing as a "mini" tornado. Perhaps P.K. can provide further insight into this though.

This is the most active time of year for TNs (Autumn to early winter that is). I dislike that term as much as I don't like the term "waterspout" and I dislike that rather a lot!

I'll likely be in London tomorrow carrying out a site investigation on this although I suspect there will still be a large area closed off.

Edit - The Met Office don't issue tornado alerts. The media just picked up on a TORRO forecast. http://www.torro.org.uk

[Yarrah]

The same front caused some damage here too. I saw an uprooted tree this evening and a lot of branches that were blown off the trees. Also, the neighbours car has been wrecked by a large branch and a bit down the street, rooftiles were all over the ground. At least one person was hurt (ME!) when a gust of wind blew him off his bike, causing him to crash on the ground, which seemed a bit harder then expected.

I saw some very impressive pictures of this front on the news today. A lot of them featured mammatus cloud which were lit bright red because the sun went down. I hope I can find some of those pictures.

PK, any idea if this was a rare weather event?

[sunny]

Edit - The Met Office don't issue tornado alerts. The media just picked up on a TORRO forecast. http://www.torro.org.uk

Hey P.K. - can you give a run down of what TORRO is for those who do not know? Thanks!

[P.K.]

To quote USA Today from a while a back "Like the NSSL and SPC rolled into one." It is a storm research group that covers the UK as no other group does (And has does since the 1970s).

It is the strongest in London for a while, T4 I'd say initially. I'll elaborate tomorrow when I have a little more time.

[Aslkahuna]

This is peak season for tornadoes in the UK for the same reason that the Winter is the peak season for tornadoes in CA. Unstable maritime air plus strong rotation aloft develops a lot of cold air funnel type tornadoes. Tornado chasing purists tend to consider anything not a mesocyclone tornado not to be a "true" tornado but for me a tornado is a tornado regardless of origin. My first exeprience with a tornado (in 1951) was with a cold air type storm in CA which I was lucky enough to survive when I was caught in its early stages while walking to school. It subsequently became a F2. Most of the tornadoes here in AZ are either landspouts, cold air type or gustnadoes that evolve into tornadoes when the surface rotation is drawn into the the storm.

Steve

[Aquawind]

Thanks for the analogy Steve.

[P.K.]

The final intensity was a T5 (Max damage was about this http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1243280-10,00.html) with a track length around 2.6km. I mentioned in a previous thread that doppler radar would be useful, well in this case from the site investigation there may have been a mesocyclone (Possible evidence of a RFD).

TORRO covers all forms of severe weather in the UK but all being run be volunteers we don't have all the resources that you have in the USA for investigating tornadoes.