‘Tornado’ near Manchester damages cars and roofs

‘Five minute torrent of madness’ hits Hale, in Greater Manchester

A “tornado” has caused significant damage to cars and hit buildings near Manchester amid high winds, rain and lightning in the UK.

Footage showed dark swirling clouds over Hale, where residents said they experienced a “five minute torrent of madness”.

The sighting was confirmed by the Met Office, which tweeted a screenshot of weather reports from Manchester Airport.

“Not very often an airport reports a funnel cloud, but @manairport’s earlier observation reported ‘FC’ with the heavy showers.”

“FC” stands for funnel cloud.

Dan Teasdale, who was visiting the Tatton Park Flower Show on Friday took a film of the distant storm.

“Pretty sure that’s a tornado at Tatton Park Flower Show,” he tweeted. In the video a voice can be heard saying: “There’s a tornado over there look.”

Mr Teasdale added: “Never seen anything like it… love a bit of extreme weather.”

In a tweet to The Independent, Mr Teasdale described the scene which had unfolded at the flower show: “It were big, it were windy and it was like an otter’s pocket,” he said of the wet weather.

Bruce Moran took photographs of a damaged car and part of a roof which had been blown down to the street.

“Yup. Tornado tore through Hale. Bonkers.” he wrote on Twitter. “True story. Tiles, roofs, trees...smashed cars. Seemingly a 5 minute torrent of madness.”

Elsewhere, Martin Kevill, 32, tweeted some footage of an uprooted tree in Cheshire with the words: “Erm there’s been a tornado in Mobberley.”

Mr Kevill told PA the tornado hit the small village at around 4.45pm.

“We were in the pub over the road and heard some pretty abnormal gusts. The pub rumbled and we ran outside to see what it was.

“The road was pitch black and it was really dark.”

He added: “When the gusts passed, a tree ripped up and fell over into a field of llamas.

“Then after a moment or two, the clouds moved along and it was actually quite clear again apart from the rain.

“I think a tree went over the train line a few metres away. The llamas are fine but there’s a valley of horrific building damage through the area.”

Met Office meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said the ingredients needed for a tornado are unstable air through stormy conditions and “wind shear”.

Wind shear is air travelling in different directions at different heights in the atmosphere.

“Those ingredients were there at the right time across the Manchester area this afternoon,” he said.

It is known as a funnel cloud until it touches the ground and causes damage.

The UK normally sees between 30 and 50 tornadoes a year.