Not a common sight in north London :eek:
Nobody killed, but several injuries. And still the BBC describes it as a “mini tornado”. They seem to have an idea that Britain can’t get “real” tornados so they have to be “mini”. (This despite the fact that Britain has more reported tornados for its size than anywhere else on the planet).
Anything that can do that to a house is not “mini” in my book.
Just waiting for the first reporter to blame global warming :rolleyes:
What? A proper tornado, even a mini one? And Gordon Brown hasn’t taxed it yet? What is the world coming to?
Britain gets tornados? I had no idea!
Yep. Not quite up there with the Great Plains, but we get quite a few.
Birmingham was hit by one last summer and in recent weeks there have been quite a few smaller ones in the past year, most recently in a small village in Wales last month.
This is the first one I can remember in London, though.
Whodathunkit? I had no idea.
Oh my it happened about 2 streets away from my house. I’m off home now to check the damage. I wonder if my insurance covers it, or whether it would be filed away under some ‘act of Og’ disclaimer.
Some insurance chap on the radio said it was basically just a storm, so you’ll be covered.
London Dopers–everybody OK?
I sort of wish I’d been driving through that. A little further over and it would have been over the tracks and I can’t help but wonder how a train would handle a tornado.
You’d die.
Trust me on this–trains are easily derailed by twister here in the States.
You take this too lightly.
I think that might be a bit of an overreaction. It was a tornado sure but as far as i can see nothing like the strength of the kind found in other parts of the world. If you look at the pictures you can see a lot of damage to some buildings but most of the area is untouched (or at least, not more messy than if there had been a typical storm).
Whooeee! I recognise those streets. Kensal Rise used to be a regular stomping ground of mine in the late 1980s.
You have to remember that the vast majority of tornados are about this size, or even smaller. It’s only the huge huge ones, which are pretty damn rare, that distort people’s perceptions.
Also, I would hazard a guess that these brick-built Victorian London houses are a lot stronger than most buildings in other tornado-prone areas. Demolishing the side wall of a brick house is more of a feat than flattening a timber framed house or lifting mobile homes of their footings.
Phew, house still standing. I was a ‘little’ concerned as I live in the roof of a converted church which is the highest building in the area - had visions of returning home to find the clock tower in my living room. Was actually most concerend about my new Mini parked outside (stuff the flat - how’s my soft top!).
Anyway, drama over, we missed it by two streets.
You say you live in the roof of a church . Are you a bat!
According to this Tronados aren’t exactly rare in UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/08/ntornado208.xml
now this is a paper that is usually a good source, but it doesn’t list sources for the data so I am dubious.
Here is a good citation http://www.torro.org.uk/TORRO/severeweather/tornadofaqs.php
Here’s a link to a pretty detailed story about train-tornado encounters. It looks like derailment is pretty much to be expected.
That’s my take on things. The strength and severity of tornadoes here are not comparable to the type of thing **Aholibah ** is talking about. The damage to Kensal was similar to that of a severe storm albeit a fairly localised one.
Aside from that, derailment is always a possibility and it too is generally not as dramatic as is commonly portrayed.
