Extreme weather gets really twisted
First it’s a heatwave, and now tornadoes are swirling in. This weather really is...
THIS mini ‘twister’ was spotted swirling around the skies of Greater Manchester. The tornado-like cloud formed above Poynton, Bollington and Macclesfield, in Cheshire, at around lunchtime yesterday. Jennie Lewis snapped the weather phenomenon from her window in Higher Poynton at around 12.15pm. Jennie, 48, said: “I was in my kitchen having an early lunch and it started raining. “We had a really heavy downpour and then I saw this unusual cloud forming. “I ran upstairs to grab my camera and by then you could see the rain and cloud twisting. “It looked like something out of a film. The cloud was getting longer but it eventually dissipated. “I’ve always been interested in the weather and this was a really unusual sight.” Other witnesses said the twister disappeared before it touched the ground. No damage has been reported to the police, a spokesman for Cheshire Constabulary said. The Met Office only define a cloud as a tornado if it touches the ground. It is possible the sight was a funnel cloud, which is the same as a tornado it just doesn’t reach the earth.
A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that reaches from the base of a storm cloud to the ground. They happen in unsettled weather conditions, usually as part of thunderstorms. If the rotating column of air does not reach the ground it is a funnel cloud. At the point a funnel cloud reaches the earth’s surface it becomes a tornado, or if it reaches a body of water it becomes a waterspout.
I saw this unusual cloud forming. It looked like something out of a film Jennie Lewis