MINI TORNADO IN BARNOLDSWICK

[Stanley]

MINI TORNADO IN BARNOLDSWICK

Yesterday (May Day) at about 16:00 I was sat on a park bench up at Letcliffe with Jack the lurcher and noted that the sky above Weets was black and what had been a gentle breeze was starting to gust a bit so we decided to walk back to the car which was parked at the South end of the park.
I was just in time, by the time I reached the car and opened the back to let Jack jump in the wind had risen and the first drops of rain were falling. I was struck by how quickly it had got up and it stirred memories of similar events on a larger scale in Tornado Alley in the States. I got Jack in the back and drove down the car park and faced west, into the wind.
I saw the rain coming and am almost certain there were some flakes of snow in the first burst that hit us. The wind got serious and lifted the dust off the road out of the park to the extent that you couldn’t see more than about fifty yards. A small child running for the safety of the family car was almost blown over and I could see the dust rotating anti-clockwise as it lifted off the road.
As the rain, very heavy by now, slaked the dust, I could see the trees in the hedge at the west end of the park whipping about in the wind. It only lasted two or three minutes but I reckon the wind was strong enough to be on the verge of causing structural damage. As the cell passed over the wind steadied to a strong breeze and the rain slacked off. Whilst it was nowhere near a tornado, it was a strange little event. I’m pretty sure there were a couple of claps of thunder but the noise of the wind was so loud that I can’t be certain that I was hearing that and not the wind.
Not a massive event but a peculiar little bit of violent weather and I got the distinct impression we had been quite lucky, any stronger and there could have been trouble. What struck me most was that my experiences in Minnesota came straight back to mind, everything fitted, I have little doubt that what I had seen was a mini storm cell, a very uncommon event in this country. (I later found out that this wasn't true. The UK has more tornado activity than almost any other country. The saving grace is that in a maritime climate over a small land mass they haven't time to develop into big events.)

3 May 2005