Tornado?

[claret047]

Moderators,

Please place this elsewhere if you do not consider it to warrant a seperate topic.

According to a lady calling into a BBC Essex programme mid morning today she informed the listeners of an incident that occured at approximately 16.05 yesterday afternoon. The lady said that she was involved with the running of a fete in the village of Cressing (between Braintree and Witham). The weather was sunny and quite calm when suddenly a tremendous wind got up lifting several gozebas and tables off the ground as well as their contents. Luckily, she advised noone was seriously hurt, just one lady was slightly injured when she was hit on the head with a table. Fortunately St Johns were in attendence and were able to treat her on site. Several organisations have lost their products that they were selling/displaying as well as the money they collected as it went skywards.

A little later an elderly lady called the station from the Prettygate district of Colchester to confirm of a similar incident yesterday afternoon in her garden. Her parasol was lifted many feet into the air and she was unable to retrieve it.

Did anyone else in Essex or neighboring counties experience similar events yesterday?

Please find atteched a copy of the link to BBC Essex Report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-10754189

Kind Regards

Dave

[staplehurst]

Sounds very much like a dust devil. I witnessed one in Norwich a few months ago, and yesterday's weather would have been ideal for one to develop - calm, light winds and sunny spells are ideal for one to develop.

[Sprites]

with sunny calm conditions it would of been a land devil,i remember a report of similar mayhem at royal Ascot a few years ago, seems that land devils can be quite powerfull,with localised winds upto maybe 60-70mph!