The Cotswold Condicote Tornado

Condicote villagers were not expecting a tornado.

However, on Saturday 28th October, a village in the Cotswolds, got hit by a tornado. Before the tornado hit people said at about 6.30 pm there was hard rain. The torrential rain started about half an hour before the tornado.

At 19.10 the tornado began and was over by 19.11. Someone said it was horrifying and someone else said it lasted about 20 to 40 seconds. The villagers said it was like a train going through the house and some felt shaking. Trees were ripped apart and small out houses were blown out of their gardens and other small buildings were blown away by the tornado. Slates came off roofs on people’s houses with tiles hitting cars leaving five houses damaged.

There was debris everywhere, destruction of roofs and sadly two houses made uninhabitable. The owners of the houses were upset. The tornado picked up debris as well as a rabbit which flew 100 metres approximately and survived. The electricity men found the rabbit in the middle of the field and it looked like it was stunned. They took the rabbit to a villager.

There was a piece of metal that got wrapped, twisted around an electric pole at the bottom of the field.

Someone said: it is shocking to see a tornado do that much damage in 20-40 second. None of the locals were hurt.

TORRO inspectors came round to Condicote (on Friday 3rd November) and ranked the Tornado as T3 which means there was airborne debris in people’s back gardens as well as broken sheds and trees! The wind speed of the tornado was approximately 114 mph. Lots of sources are from a site called TORRO.

Written by Tilly, Sienna, Eadie, Lev and Willow.

Photos Lucy Clare