Tornado+large hail near Kidlington (Oxfordshire) at 15Z today

[Ricardo]

Greetings from Marlow.
On BBC News 24 this evening, Tornado report from Kidlington.
My storm chasing friend from Henley rang about this thunderstorm this
afternoon, Brize Norton and Lyneham both reported
surface winds from the E/NE prior to the Tornado forming in a unstable
SSW flow.Also picture on The Oxford News web page!

Regards Richard Bailey

[Martin Rowley]

... yes Richard; I wouldn't mind betting there will be other reports
about come the morning - nothing too dramatic I fancy, but the way the
energy 'exploded' on the radar imagery this afternoon, coupled to the
evident shear as you've noted (and the suggestion of a weak jet aloft),
did suggest conditions were good enough for T2 or perhaps T3
developments, which is what (so far) the reports on the ground suggest.
[ TORRO scale here:- http://www.torro.org.uk/site/tscale.php ]

Martin.



--
West Moors / East Dorset
Lat: 50deg 49.25'N, Long: 01deg 53.05'W
Height (amsl): 17 m (56 feet)
COL category: C1 overall

[Stephen Davenport]

On May 7, 9:44 pm, Martin Rowley <westmoorsweat...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

> On 07/05/2012 21:04, Ricardo wrote:
>
> > Greetings from Marlow.
> > On BBC News 24 this evening, Tornado report from Kidlington.
> > My storm chasing friend from Henley rang about this thunderstorm this
> > afternoon, Brize Norton and Lyneham both reported
> > surface winds from the E/NE prior to the Tornado forming in a unstable
> > SSW flow.Also picture on The Oxford News web page!
>
> > Regards Richard Bailey
>
> ... yes Richard; I wouldn't mind betting there will be other reports
> about come the morning - nothing too dramatic I fancy, but the way the
> energy 'exploded' on the radar imagery this afternoon, coupled to the
> evident shear as you've noted (and the suggestion of a weak jet aloft),
> did suggest conditions were good enough for T2 or perhaps T3
> developments, which is what (so far) the reports on the ground suggest.
> [ TORRO scale here:-http://www.torro.org.uk/site/tscale.php]
>
> Martin.
>

=================================================

There's a quick animation of the radar imagery here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRyDR5caoGM


Stephen.

[simonwyndham]

From what I was reading today that storm has been confirmed as being a
supercell!

Simon

[simonwyndham]

Footage of the event. Yep, that's definitely a supercell!

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2012-05-08/dramatic-footage-tornado-in-the-south/

Simon

[liams...@lavabit.com]

Yes, it passed by me in Milton Keynes.

I saw the storm coming on the radar, so decided to go out and try and
take some pictures (safety be damned!). At one point I saw what looked
to be a funnel cloud, but then thought better of it, and convinced
myself I was seeing things. Imagine my surprise when I heard on the
news later that a tornado had been reported!

We got the storm after it had passed through Oxford, so the tornado
had been and gone by the time it got here. Was still a nasty-looking
storm though. Haven't seen sky that black for a long time, and
rotation was clearly evident.

--
Liam
http://physics.open.ac.uk/~lsteele/

[liams...@lavabit.com]

In fact, here is the thing that I thought might have been some sort of
funnel cloud, but it is probably just a trick due to the angle of the
cloud. Can anyone confirm or deny? :-)

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz309/jf22901/Storm%207%20May%202012/dsc00348b.jpg

--
Liam
http://physics.open.ac.uk/~lsteele/

[simonwyndham]

It is definitely worth watching the ITV footage. The rotation in the entire storm is clearly visible, and then the tornado starts to form right above the car that the couple are in! The camera briefly looks directly up at it.

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2012-05-08/dramatic-footage-tornado-in-the-south/

Simon

http://www.5ep.co.uk

[Stephen Davenport]

Here's a very close up look at the mesocyclone and developing tornado
over Eynsham:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45GlGik9J3I&feature=g-all-c

Stephen.