Mini tornado sets off car alarms and bang bin lids across UK region

26 January 2024 , 19:10

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Mini tornado sets off car alarms and bang bin lids across UK region

Footage captures outdoor lighting shake in heavy wind last night.

Residents across The Wirral, Merseyside, claim the area experienced a "mini tornado" as winds raged throughout the night. CCTV taken at The Grange in the town of Moreton shows lights rattle in the pub garden. An ornament is seen rolling along the ground in the clip.

People in the region reported how car alarms started going off in the street as rain poured down onto people's windows making a "horrendous" noise. The Grange's Facebook post reads: "Wow, did anyone hear that storm in the early hours? This is what it looked like, it was like a tornado."

One woman said: "All car alarms went off round here (Woodchurch) at once." Another Wirral resident said: "Yes ten past two. I thought it was a tornado, quite frightening"

A third person said: "Woke us up too and I said it was like a tornado. The noise off the wind was horrendous and the rain on the windows sounded like ice." A fourth added: "Woke me up in Moreton at 2am. Lots of bins moving around and lids banging."

Gales, snow and rain to batter country today with 80mph wind gusts

The Grange's footage, recorded at 2.16am, shows particularly heavy wind (supplied)

The Met Office told Liverpool Echo a complex series of cold weather fronts crossed the UK, bringing stormy conditions. Grahame Madge, Met Office spokesman, said: “Weather fronts which crossed the UK last night favoured the development of squally conditions and many areas reported anomalous gustiness overnight. Typically, tornadoes are identified by their classical inverted cone shape.

"This isn’t viewed in this video so it isn’t possible to say if this was an effect of a tornado; but that is possible. Typically the UK experiences about 30 tornadoes in an average year, with some years recording many more than this."

Storm Jocelyn wreaked havoc on the UK on Wednesday, sparking a huge rescue operation after reports emerged of a person falling in the raging sea. Just days after Storm Isha barrelled through the British isles, Jocelyn delivered 97mph gales to huge swathes of the country and its surrounding waters. On Tuesday night, rescuers continued to scour the waves off the coast of Porthcawl in south Wales after the alarm was raised at around 6pm.

Abigail Nicholson