Chaos as mini tornado hits Southern & Central England

Several tornadoes have ripped through parts of Britain, causing serious damage to buildings and property.

The powerful winds caused carnage through towns in the Midlands and the South early this morning.

Tiles were ripped off roofs, fences blown over and in one case a caravan was blown onto its roof.

Farnborough in Hampshire, Luton, Northampton and Nottingham were all hit between 6am and 8am.

Other extreme wind events are reported to have occurred up and down the country.

Police said at least 10 houses had been hit in Farnborough, with some homes suffering severe structural damage.

The weather system that caused the disruption was over Exeter at 4am before moving over Luton and Nuneaton later in the morning.

A mini tornado struck Northampton shortly before 7am today causing rush hour chaos for motorists, ripping the roof off a school bus and uprooting several trees.

 

The bus, which was empty at the time, was hit by a tree branch on the A4500 Wellingborough Road, between Ecton and Earls Barton, at about 7am.

The bus was substantially damaged and part of its roof was torn off.

Several roads in and out of Northampton were also hit because traffic lights had failed.

A twister in Nuneaton, in central England, was the most destructive, damaging about 35 homes on Mallard Avenue and Kingfisher Avenue, Lisa Mowe, a spokeswoman for Warwickshire police, said in a telephone interview from Warwick. Firefighters were called to the scene at 6:23 a.m. local time, she said.
 
``About 10 of the houses have severe damage -- their roofs have partially come off,'' Mowe said. ``Some trees are down in the area.'' No injuries have been reported, she said.