Suspected tornado tore through village as storm hit UK

A suspected tornado ripped through part of a Hampshire village, leaving "devastation" in its wake, a resident has said.

The weather phenomenon left a line of damage about one mile long (1.6km) and about 100m (328ft) wide in the village of Portchester on Thursday night.

Sarah Horton, from the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO), said it was linked to Storm Austen bringing in heavy showers and changing winds.

Kevin Saunders, who lives in the affected area, said: "Our neighbours' walls are down, trees have gone, bushes have gone, metal fencing's gone, so it's just complete devastation."

Saunders said he and his wife were in bed when they heard "a massive rush of wind".

"It felt like the roof was going to lift off of the house," he said.

"Straight after that, we heard a massive bang, which was one of our neighbour's walls falling over."

He said it was "very intense but very, very short", adding that most of their metal fences were blown over and the roof of their hot tub was "completely gone".

"It just seemed to be localised by about four houses and it seemed to last about 35 to 40 seconds," Saunders said. "It's devastation everywhere."

Horton said she could see a lot of trees had been damaged along a "very narrow path" when she arrived at the scene.

"Some of the trees had lost their branches and these branches had been thrown off to one side," she said.

"With tornadoes, you usually get a very characteristic long line of damage where you can see that debris has been thrown to particular locations."

The tornado expert said it was linked to Storm Austen, which hit the UK on Thursday evening, bringing in a line of heavy showers.

She said these, combined with the wind changing speed or direction, made the showers start to rotate, resulting in the tornado.

It is not the first time Portchester has been hit by a tornado.

In 2002, more than 100 properties were damaged when a "mini tornado" tore through the village.

Horton said they were relatively common at this time of year around the south coast.

"In fact, for the last few years, there's been at least one tornado every year between Hampshire and Sussex," she said.