Mini tornado caught on camera in UK pub car park (video)
A mini tornado has struck a pub car park - in Worcester.
The unusual phenomenon was caught on camera by tiler Ross Withers, 24, who spotted the 20ft tall twister while enjoying a drink with friends in Cripplegate Park on Saturday 3 May.
The tornado is seen swirling around near cars and people, before it then fizzled out near a fence.
The footage shows a number of people cramming to get pictures and video of the sight, which is not so common in England.
That is, we think tornadoes are not so common in Britain because they are usually small.
But, in fact, a Met Office spokesman told The Sun that while UK twisters are fairly weak, we actually have more of them than anywhere else on the planet.
He told the paper: "You see more tornadoes in the UK for the surface area than in any other part of the world - but they're at best 50 metres across.
"In the US they can be one kilometre and wipe out whole towns."
Back in August 2012, a string of tornadoes swept across the South West and were spotted in the Severn Estuary before moving across Clevedon in Somerset.
And, in June 2012, a grandfather told how a powerful tornado lifted his caravan into the air - while he was trying to relax inside.
David Sinclair, a security guard at the Long Sutton Butterfly and Wildlife Park attraction, described how he felt like a "tennis ball in a tumble drier" as the twister carried his caravan through a paddock and dropped him in a field in Long Sutton, Lincs, leaving him squashed under his fridge.
He eventually managed to free himself and get to a nearby farmhouse for help.
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud.
Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust.
Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour, are about 250 feet across, and travel a few miles before dissipating.
The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour, stretch more than two miles across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles.
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