Moment 'tornado' hits sleepy town as UK battered by thunderstorms

Residents successful Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, were struck by a tornado connected Friday with unthinkable footage showing the swirling twister rage crossed the entity amidst terrible Met Office upwind warnings

This is the terrifying infinitesimal a tornado was spotted sweeping implicit a quiescent Cotswolds town.

The fierce spiral of upwind raged done Tewkesbury successful Gloucestershire causing havoc to thing successful its way arsenic millions were deed by storms. Resident Rich Martin caught footage of the tempest connected Friday arsenic parts of the state faced freak weather to people the extremity of the summer.

Tewkesbury's tornado deed astatine astir 4.24pm - astir 4 hours aft the municipality of Aldershot, Hampshire, faced a akin tornado which damaged homes and uprooted trees. Rich, 38, a builder and dada to six-year-old Grace, said his girl was "flabbergasted" by the freak upwind event.

"It was a spectacle successful existent time. "It lasted astir 20 seconds. The winds got up precise dramatically, felt similar a country from twister. Right place, Right time!"

The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation confirmed a tornado successful Aldershot astatine astir 12.25pm connected Friday, which was tracekd moving 1.2miles done the town. Nobody was wounded successful the tempest though 1 resident's chimney was damaged, portion 1 histrion was ripped retired of a resident's garden.

It followed the Met Office issuing a yellowish weather informing for thunderstorms successful the country earlier successful the week, which followed respective days of bright, sunny upwind and temperatures bursting the 20C mark. Warnings covered the South West, Wales and portion of the Midlands and North West, and continued passim the weekend.

Paul Knightley, from the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, told the BBC: “The enactment of tornadoes is inactive the taxable of intensive research, and their nonstop mechanisms are yet to beryllium understood. In a wide sense, though, pre-existing rotation successful the little ambiance tin beryllium stretched by the beardown upwards-moving aerial successful a thunderstorm, and focussed into a tornado. This seems apt to person been what happened today.”