Significant tornado tracks through Birmingham, UK

[Stuart Robinson]

Significant for the UK

Reports just coming in but what appears to be a T3/4 (Low F2) has this afternoon tracked across the metropolitan are of South East Birmingham today.

50 Ambulance crews attended the scene and the fire service has called this a major incident. Reports are that 19 people have been injured – 3 seriously

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_mi...nds/4725279.stm

and the UK media still calls these "mini tornadoes" :evil:

I should also mention that both TORRO (UK) and ESTOFEX (Europe) along with many chaser forecast this event - but there is simply no way of issuing warnings in the UK :?

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Some Images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/im...y_Copy.shtml?36

 

[Bill Hark]

Wow, that was a major storm for the area. It will be interesting to see the final damage surveys and reports. Hopefully, there will be some nice video of the tornado itself. Thanks for the updates.

Bill Hark

 

[Dan Cook]

wow. :shock:

 

[Bernard Hulshof]

Amazing! Just saw footage of this tornado on the Dutch news. It was shot by amateurs and they were nearly standing INSIDE the tornado and were nearly blown away. Unfortunately the British media report was translated literal, so it was called a mini-tornado...

By the way, during the early evening a "mini-tornado" touched down southwest of Brussels, Belgium:
<IMG SRC=http://www.weerwoord.be/uploads/19720052813290.jpg>
Several supercells formed in northwestern Europe today, so maybe I will receive more tornado reports.

Bernard

 

[Karen Politte]

The rotation of that wall cloud/tornadic circulation was amazing - it doesn't come any better than that if you're a rotation buff.

Congrats to England - you've scored a fairly nice catch this time!

KR

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Some graphic damage images have just been shown on UK T.V. I will post some up some of the images soon.

and still the UK media call this and other tornadic events "mini tornadoes"

 

[W. Grant Dade]

Picture # 7 is a spitting image of the Desoto County, MS tornado I filmed in March.

 

[W. Grant Dade]

http://image42.webshots.com/43/2/8/4/30312...04nkSMDv_fs.jpg

That is the link to the storm I filmed in March here in Mississippi.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/im...ry_Copy.shtml?7

Thats the link to the UK Tornado. Hmmmmmm?

Not sure why the first link is not allowed.

 

[W. Grant Dade]

Here is another link

http://community.webshots.com/album/303120491rGZFrg

It is picture tornado E.

 

[Scott Olson]

Yep... Thats your picture and not the Birmingham tornado.

-Scott.

 

[Anthony Silver]

:shock: Tornadoes in England? I guess that would be the last place I'd ever expect to see or hear of one!

 

[Gabe Garfield]

Tornadoes in England? I guess that would be the last place I'd ever expect to see or hear of one!

Actually, England gets a number of tornadoes yearly. From what I understand, most of these are "cold core low tornadoes", that is, they form in environments characterized by small CAPE (in the deep layer) but very strong low-level shear.

Gabe

 

[Anthony Silver]

I never even stopped to think of that. For some weird reason I didnt think the UK's climate favored tornadic development-guess I was wrong. I know that several places in Europe occaisonally see tornadoes, but never knew it was possible in England.

 

[Steven Williams]

Have just seen that tornado video on TV news here(NZ). Quite an impressive tornado. And yes, England gets more than its fair share of tornadoes as does the west of Europe.