Investigator describes damage caused by Littlehampton tornado

The roof of a house was ripped off overnight on Saturday as the natural phenomena hit Littlehampton and Wick.

The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (Torro) confirmed the tornado and gave it a rating of T4, signifying it as being of “severe” force.

Sussex Police had to close North Street in the town as they supported firefighters and paramedics after a phone line collapsed onto a property.

Windows and garden furniture were also damaged during the incident.

Torro site investigator Sarah Horton, who visited the affected areas on Sunday morning, said she was astonished by the damage caused.

The severe tornado caused damage to properties (Image: PA)

Read more: Updates as county braced for more wet weather

“The scene was quite shocking,” she said.

“Especially around the area where the roof of the house blew off.

“That’s an unusual occurrence in the UK.

“And for the residents it must have been very scary.

“We know that it’s a tornado because there was a long narrow track that went right through Littlehampton.

“It was around 150 metres wide.

“There was lots of lofted debris.

“That means that objects were picked up and thrown some distance.

“Also, the pattern of damage that you see shows that it was a tornado.

“We categorised it as a T4 because a roof was taken off a house and thrown across the road and hit another house.”

The tornado is the second to hit Littlehampton in less than two months.

Windows were blown out, tiles ripped from roofs and at least one person was injured when the previous tornado hit in September.

Ms Horton said Littlehampton has been “really unlucky”.

“There does seem to be a stronger concentration of bouts of tornados from the east of the Isle of Wight through to around East Sussex,” she said.

“They were just really unfortunate to have two in such a short space of time.

“A probable tornado did hit Littlehampton three years ago also.”

Ms Horton said the UK averages 35 tornados a year.

Torro is now looking into the tornado and where it came from.

“We’ll be collating reports from local people and putting them together with the work we undertook yesterday,” she said.

“We’ll also be looking at radar images and that’s going to help us understand what happened.

“The next part is to analyse the pattern and the damage and then we can get more understanding of how far this tornado travelled.”