Tornado Strikes Darwen 29/11/11

[Tim B]

Those of you who tuned in to the north west local news today will no doubt have heard about this already, several roads were shut after a storm yesterday which struck around 1:45 pm producing heavy rain along with hail, high winds plus at least one tornado which flung a lot of debris from buildings and trees, etc.

I did not see any funnel myself but I was caught in town at the time it blew through and I'll bet most of the damage attributed to the funnel was actually caused by the very high winds (possibly a microburst) which the storm produced as I weigh 14 and a half stone but they was strong enough to blow me around / stop me walking against them while sending wheelie bins flying through the air and throwing tiles off buildings / branches from trees and such while turning the roads to rivers in mere seconds which was quite a sight.

Newspaper report on the event:

http://www.lancashir...ornado_strikes/

Edit:

After a look at some of the damaged areas today I personally don't think a tornado was responsible. The damage is consistent with a small tornado but the areas of damage do not follow the storms track like a tornado would had it dropped from it, the areas of the most damage were on junctions facing west / west south west which makes me think local buildings channeled powerful downdrafts in to transient air currents strong enough to produce the tornadic like effects mentioned in the report.

That said I'll leave this report here given the numerous claims of a funnel, but in hindsight I don't think there was one.

[rob-lancs]

Further report

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9397744.Darwen_nursery_staff_count_cost_of_mini_tornado/?ref=mmsp

[Coast]

Two tornado reports on the ESWD for this week as well:

Tornado- Breighton England United Kingdom (53.81 N, 0.92 W)

29-11-2011 (Tuesday) 15:15 UTC (+/- 15 min.)

based on: information from an eye-witness report, a report on a website, a damage survey by a severe weather expert, an eyewitness report of the damage occurring over: land

land use where event was first observed: land

intensity: F1

the intensity rating was based on a damage survey by a severe weather expert.

The funnel cloud was observed.

path length: 10.5 km

direction of movement: SW-NE

tornado observed; damage reported;

source: "TN (Tornado) Breighton Airfield E.Yorkshire 29.11.11 RFMI", UKWW Forum, 29 NOV 2011;

site investigation;

report status: report confirmed (QC1)

Tornado - Stockport England United Kingdom (53.41 N, 2.16 W)

29-11-2011 (Tuesday) 14:30 UTC (+/- 3 hrs.)

based on: information from a newspaper report, a television or radio broadcast, a report on a website

occurring over: land

land use where event was first observed: town or city

the intensity rating was based on a written account of the damage (e.g. in a newspaper).

http://www.bbc.co.uk...hester-15948258 http://www.itv.com/g...er-damage86962/

[Muffelchen]

There was also some reports of a tornado in Holme-on-Spalding Moor, East Yorkshire when the squall line went through. I have no further details at the moment but there was quite a bit of damage.