CNN: Six injured as tornado hits London

[DeepModem Mom]

Six injured as tornado hits London
December 7, 2006


The side of a building torn off by the tornado.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A tornado hit a residential area of London on Thursday, injuring at least six people, according to ambulance service staff.

Police were alerted to the tornado in north-west London at around 11 a.m., a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.

One man was taken to hospital suffering from serious head injuries, and five people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and shock.

The storm, with winds of around 150 mph (240 kph), ripped roofs off some homes, tore down walls and trees, and left streets strewn with debris. One car was buried under fallen bricks, video footage from the scene showed....

***

Experts say that while Britain experiences more than 30 tornadoes a year, it is rare for them to cause damage on the scale seen in London on Thursday.

Local weather reports said warmer than normal temperatures this fall contributed to formation of the tornado.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/07/uk.tornado/index.html

[msongs]

1. temps in europe are pretty warm for this time of year.

places like oslo, moscow, etc are all in the 40's or more, with night temps not much below freezing if that.

meanwhile in alaska the temps in fairbanks have been as low as -20 degrees quite a bit.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Eurobabe]

4. Yeah tomorrow we get the "Alpenfoen" winds

and it is supposed to be sunny and 15C (roughly 60F) I think I'll be sunbathing in the afternoon, but seriously, this is scary shit.

[SharonAnn]

12. Too funny! Modest sunbathing felines! I love it.

[Eurobabe]

2. Tornadoes in LONDON in December??

Get the fuck outta here!

And a December tornado in Bucks Co. PA last week?

Where's that asshole Inhofe who just said scientists promoting global warming were doing so to gain grant dollars? I'd like to wring his fat neck!!

[DeepModem Mom]

3. It's absolutely bizarre! nt

[seriousstan]

7. Not bizarre at all.

1950: Tornado sweeps southern England

One or two tornadoes are reported every year in the UK, of varying severity. Most are very limited in area, and cause damage over a narrow band not many miles in length.

They generally happen as a result of violent thunderstorms, and are caused by strong air currents within a storm cloud creating a high-speed funnel of wind.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/21/newsid_2966000/2966457.stm

The most recent tornado known to London is the South London tornado of 1984. The sky turned green, patio furniture was blown, but luckily no lives were lost.

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/newmedia2006/default.asp?id=269

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Isn't a tornado in December unusual?

And, I may be wrong, but I think the second link is Canadian?

[Judi Lynn]

Thanks for pointing that out! Very interesting. From that link:

London is the middle of Canada’s worst tornado alley, according to James Voogt, a meteorology professor at The University of Western Ontario. Voogt specializes in urban climate and meteorology. The alley reaches from Windsor to Ottawa.
(snip)

[laundry_queen]

11. Yes.

Tornadoes in London, England: rare
Tornadoes in London, Ontario: not so much
Tornadoes in either in December: wtf?

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Small tornadoes aren't that rare in Britain

but they're short-lived, so don't often cause much damage.

The UK experiences an estimated 50 tornadoes on land each year, putting it top of the European league.
...
She said the tornado formed due to a lot of energy in the air across the UK, producing widespread heavy thunderstorms with gusty winds.

"However, in the case of the shower in London, the massive up and down draughts came into phase, spiralling and forming a tornado," she said.

The Association of British Insurers said initial estimates suggested damage would be in the millions of pounds rather than tens of millions as seen in Birmingham tornado in 2005.

The last tornado which caused significant damage in London was in December 1954, in west London, in which six people were hurt and the roof of Gunnersbury London Underground station was ripped off.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6217514.stm

The Birmingham one was in July/

[Judi Lynn]

9. Sorry, double post. n/t

[Lisa]

14. yes -- southwestern Ontario

We also have a "Paris", and we used to have a "Berlin" (until the town was forced to change its name to "Kitchener" because of anti-German sentiment during WWI).

Confusing, isn't it!

Southern Ontario does get quite a lot of storms (being so close to Tornado Alley -- in fact, Canada has TWO Tornado Alleys). I remember that a drive-in theatre near my hometown was destroyed by one twister.

Canada's had tornado fatalities even in Barrie (north of Toronto), and Edmonton (northern Alberta).

We had an F1 in Hamilton, last November.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/11/10/hamilton-wind051110.html

Our weather service suggests that tornado frequency increases when months are unusually warm.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l843514162565720/

Global warming could result in late/early tornadoes, as well as more during the peak summer months.

[stormymonday]

16. Early winter is the Tornado season in the UK

Returning Polar Maritime air crossing warmish Atlantic seas often becomes quite unstable and can spawn small tornadoes. These are most common over areas bordering the English Channel. Fortunately, they are usually very short lived and rarely cause fatalities. Much more serious are the big Atlantic depressions that can batter the UK in the autumn and winter. These storms can cause extensive damage and are killers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns%27_Day_storm

A very active jet stream over the Atlantic has been sending us one of these deep areas of low pressure very few days over the past two weeks. Todays tornado was just a by product from the passage of one of these systems.

[Virginia Dare]

5. Welcome to the New World Order...

as dictated by Mother Nature, because she's mighty pissed off that we're killing her baby.

[Beausoir]

6. Wow. That seems really weird. I'm listening to Virgin Radio on the net.

They are pretty shook up about this storm. Scary.

[Porcupine]

10. No worries, it's just a little climate change.

That's behaving an awfull lot like some scary movies we saw recently but no bother really.

[tanyev]

13. Nope. That's a mass delusion.

Sen. Inhofe said so.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2873412