Tornado in London

[dotinthesky]

Holy Macaroni!

A tornado has struck North West London. The tornado went down Chamberlayne Road, not too far from Kilburn Lane, where I lived for a year and a half [full story here - thanks for the heads up sparklielizard].

I know that road well. We walked down it every time we visited Sainsburys or wanted to rent a movie. We also used it for reaching Queen's Park or going to our local pub. Incredible.

London looked horrible this morning, with rain and darkness everywhere. The downpour disappeared on my way to work, then returned with a few thunderstorms and black clouds. An hour later, the sky was blue.

Question for any Brits reading this: have tornados ever appeared in London before?

Comments

[theairwebreathe.livejournal.com]

I just saw on a Reuters article that it was categorized as a T04 - I'm not familiar with that scale but it's 0-10, so 4 is pretty decent. I went through this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andover,_Kansas_Tornado_Outbreak) when I was 12. I've been in countless smaller ones, huddled in basements and crawlspaces. They're scary but they seriously indoctrinate the people there on disaster preparedness starting in grade school.

I was always more scared of the sounds of the sirens - in Kansas they just reassigned the old air raid sirens for the tornadoes. They go off when one has been sighted on the ground.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Photos after the fact (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6217898.stm)

[kevyn-kronycles.livejournal.com]

Yikes