Tornado

On the 23rd August 2004 I got caught in the aftermath of a Tornado. We were on our way back from getting the car serviced and were caught in Ashbourne, Derbyshire at the time. The roads became an instant river in places and were almost impassable.

"Vortex of some sort" or "scud tendril" who knows, either way the cloud had rapid rotation.

See a video clip here of the cloud rotation

The Day After

I walked the path of the Tornado using GPS to plot its route. (See map Below) It is over three miles long and has left trees shredded on its route. Starting at Blyth River the tornado worked its way across fields up the valley and down the other side, it then climbed up another valley and down the other side of that before splitting into to according to witnesses at JCB.

The debris left behind show a clear and defined path so it was quite easy to follow. Just a 100m away from the path of the tornado and there is no damage at all, not even any debris, it was very local and typical of a tornado.

Some farm buildings had seen slight damage, mainly plastic shutters being ripped off and large steel doors. Some smaller sheds had roofs ripped off.

Left: The barn door. Right: Part of the door 1000m away

There were a few oak trees several feet thick just split in half.

Above: The large tree had clearly been pushed over and at the bottom of the image you can see some tree roots, I can't confirm this but I am told this came form the back garden of house A, (see image below) and landed in the garden of house B (the owners of house B refused to talk to anyone). The owner of house A confirmed that he had lost two large conifers. I only found one.

Lots of other trees had just been snapped in half like matchsticks or ripped from there roots.

Large Trunks snapped like matchsticks

The most noticeable damage was the straw bails, 1-1.5 ton in weight I was told. These had been rolled along the fields but one or two had been lifted up and carried quite a distance, one I worked out had been lifted over 1000m over two sets of hedge/tree rows and just dumped.

Bails smashed up against hedgerows

Two homes were damaged, one quite badly and is now uninhabitable.

Extensive damage caused to this home. On the inside cracks could be seen in the walls.
The owner witnessed the Tornado, by watching it from his conservatory
shortly before being hit by debris and ending up with seven stitches.

The path was quite straight and only in a few occasions did it deviate. The tornado seamed to be influenced by the largest tree lined hedgerows, it looked like it had grabbed hold of hedgerow and followed it until it ran out of trees and then cut a path across the field until it got to another hedgerow. If the hedgerow was not in the right direction it just cut through it dumping any low debris in the hedgerow.

It was very clear some people had a front row seat. Most said the tornado was about 100ft in diameter, damage width was about 100m. Doors from the turkey farm could be seen in the vortex along with parts of trees. One car had been spun round. A young girl told me how she was thrown 70ft across a builders yard.

A phone camera image of the Tornado approaching

Tornado Details:

Date: 23rd August 2004
TORRO Scale: TBA
Time: 3:40pm
Start Location: A518 where the Blyth passes under. SW of Uttoxeter.
Finish Location: A50, Near JCB World Parts
Length of run: 3 - 3.5 Miles

Local Paper - Burton Mail - Devastation as tornado rips through village