Last updated at 17:07, Friday, 13 July 2012

FREAK weather hit Millom as residents captured stunning footage of a tornado hurtling over the town.

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The cyclone was spotted on Wednesday evening as intense hailstone rained down.

Jenny Brumby, who lives at Millom Pier, noticed the twister on the Duddon Estuary around 8pm and sent a video, filmed on her mobile phone, to the Evening Mail.

Her son’s startled reaction was “What’s that? Is it going to get us?”

Mrs Brumby said: “I heard my son Connor say ‘What’s that?’

“We looked out of the window and I said ‘It’s a tornado!’

“It didn’t do any damage, it was just picking up sand as it went along the beach for around half a mile.”

“My sister-in-law was in the garden and we shouted for her to come over. My nephews came over too and the youngest one, Elliot, who’s seven, was especially interested.”

The hail had yet to melt when Alan Fallow reported for work as caretaker at St James’ Catholic Primary School, in Millom, yesterday. He said: “I go to school about 6.30am and always check the ground.

“And you know how you get snow that goes against the fence and lingers?

“It was like that, but it was very slippery. In fact, I had to wash it away with buckets of water. It was like a spawn, if you will.

“It took some clearing up. If I hadn’t washed it away, it wouldn’t have moved.”

Edward Mills, of High Carley, near Ulverston, is an honorary Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Offering a potential explanation for the tornado, he said: “Well, we have been in that kind of weather regime. In Millom, maybe the topography had something to do with it, coming in around Black Combe.

“I think it was probably a very isolated occurrence which you tend to get with that type of shower.

“Generally, if it doesn’t touch the ground, it’s usually a funnel cloud – a tornado in the making – if it does touch, it’s a tornado, and if it’s over the sea, it’s a waterspout.

“So it definitely sounds like a tornado if it was touching the sand.

“They say there are more tornados in Britain per square mile than there are in America.”

First published at 16:04, Thursday, 12 July 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk