The Tornado Valleys

[Workingman]

Tornadoes have been reported in Wales!!!

Some of the pictures show quite a lot of damage, not surprising with winds up to 94mph.

[JoM]

Not just Wales Frank, the JCB factory near Uttoxeter has been damaged by a tornado, it's smashed down the wall and windows of part of the building there.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2016/11/17/severe-weather-warning-as-70pmh-winds-pound-west-midlands-and-staffordshire-live-updates/

We had one here which did a bit of damage near to my Mom and Dad's house some years ago. One of the boys was a baby and we had a power cut so I had to walk up to my Mom's to make up some bottles and saw a tornado forming in the sky. It was like the Wizard of Oz all over again
Not to forget the awful damage down in Birmingham a few years ago!

[TheOstrich]

Before the Birmingham tornado referred to by Jo - there was a lovely story at the time of a man in a hut being picked up on one side of Kings Heath High Street and put down on the other side, intact, hut and all - there was quite a violent tornado in the SW suburbs of the city, back around 1966-67 time. Birmingham is renowned as a bit of a tornado alley.

I saw that 1966-67 one. It first landed in Metchley Lane, Harborne, picking up a garden shed and slapping it down 5 houses up the road, before moving onto the University campus where it made a pile of Austin Mini cars in the car park. Then it cut across my school's playing fields. It was a Friday afternoon and, with my friend P., we were working on cataloguing the school's geology exhibits in the geography room overlooking the sports area. We were being supervised by Mr Burnett, who was generally hoving around by the large windows, when he suddenly said "you'd better both come over and look at this ... ". We went, and saw the trees by the Head Master's house being whipped into a frenzy. Then we saw another young tree being pulled out of the ground and falling across the central reservation of the Bristol Road! A few minutes later, the twister hit a building site somewhere in the direction of Moseley, and they "released" the crane, which started spinning - and debris from the building site was whipped up and we could for the first time clearly see the funnel formation. Not long after that, it petered out. Nobody hurt, plenty of damage (pictures in the local newspaper of the cars), and something I'll never forget!!

[Workingman]

Jo, some of those photos in the link are what I was talking of.

I have never seen a tornado in the UK, but I have seen quite a few funnel clouds (aborted tornadoes) and would have loved to be with Ossie in the classroom.

What I did see plenty of when I was in the ME were sand devils. These are whirlwinds that pick up the sand, sometimes hundreds of metres into the air. It is not uncommon to see a number of them all 'dancing' round a centre point. Terrific!

[JoM]

That must've been something to see Ossie!

My friend works in Wolverhampton and knew nothing of the one we had around here until she drove down her street and saw roof tiles in the road and part of the neighbour's shed in her garden.

[TheOstrich]

What I did see plenty of when I was in the ME were sand devils. These are whirlwinds that pick up the sand, sometimes hundreds of metres into the air. It is not uncommon to see a number of them all 'dancing' round a centre point. Terrific!

I can remember a Mr Managhan, who was the office manager at the firm where I was first apprenticed back in the 60s, and who had served in the North Africa Campaign in WW2, bemoaning that whenever the troop settled down and got their bully beef rations out, it seemed a sand-devil would come from out of nowhere, sweep through the camp, and cover all the food with sand!

[cromwell]

There were a few storms in the early 90's in the north.
I was working for the police at the time and there was a legendary (and true) call sent from a police car on the M62, something like "Car X here, patrolling the M62 in between junctions 25 and 26... we've just been overtaken by a garden shed..."

[JoM]

[Kaz]

[TheOstrich]