Torna-no?
As I've mentioned in the past, we tend to have a mild climate in Great Britain, with extremes being certainly rarer than the continental climate I come from. So it was with an arch of the eyebrow that I greeted yesterday's news that a bunch of tornadoes had hit southern England.
It seems that my skepticism is somewhat merited:
It gets better.
Ma'am, a tornado sounds like a freight train, lifts cars 100 feet in the air, and, if you're lucky, will leave the first floor of your house behind. What you had was high winds, or maybe a dust devil on steroids.
ADDED: I should probably not demean the damage or the injuries suffered by the folks here, but when I think of tornado, I think of this.
It seems that my skepticism is somewhat merited:
Nina Ridge from the BBC Weather Centre said that the winds reached 60mph.
In a statement, the Met Office said that the gusts were "conducive to tornadoes" and measured T2 or T3 on the TORRO scale (which ranges from 0 to 10), meaning they were "moderate to strong".
It gets better.
Ruth Spaull of Luton said that she saw "a funnel of wind" lift her daughter's trampoline 15ft (4.52m) into the air.
Ma'am, a tornado sounds like a freight train, lifts cars 100 feet in the air, and, if you're lucky, will leave the first floor of your house behind. What you had was high winds, or maybe a dust devil on steroids.
ADDED: I should probably not demean the damage or the injuries suffered by the folks here, but when I think of tornado, I think of this.
Labels: British life, weather
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 12:45 PM
4 Comments:
If my memory serves me, I believe you had some reportorial experience with the Plainsfield tornado.
The UK actually has the highest frequency of reported tornadoes per unit area in the world. Honest.
They're just not all as dramatic as yours :)
Everyone in England should be forced to watch "Twister." Now those are tornadoes (albeit fictional ones).
Dick Cheney wanted to force the Abu Ghraib prisoners to watch "Twister," but Donald Rumsfeld said, "The Geneva Conventions are fairly clear that it would constitute torture."
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