Oxfordshire village shocked by “unexpected” tornado

The Oxfordshire village of Kidlington is reeling after an unexpected tornado caused damage to houses and tore down trees.

Kidlington, population 17,500, saw the worst of a tornado that was also reportedly seen yesterday in Eynsham, Bicester and South Leigh. Hailstones, thunder and lightning struck Kidlington, while a overhead tornado felled trees across the area.


Eyewitness Dave Ewart saw the storm over Kidlington, Oxfordshire at around 4.40pm on Monday. 

“I was about to leave the house when I heard thunder and lightning so I stuck my head out of the window and saw a big rotating cloud,” he told Yahoo! News. “It got very windy, very quickly and there were hailstones coming down. In front of our house I could see the car bouncing up and down on its suspension.

“It lasted for around a minute with complete calm on either side,” he added. “It was very unexpected as it had been a nicely calm day. It was unsettling as it was so oppressive overhead, it was like nothing I have seen before.

“There was no damage to our home but within a couple of houses either side there were fences down and trees down across the village”.

[Related story:  New storm warning after tornado]  

Footage taken by Richard Glazer on the A34 near Kidlington shows the tornado swirling overhead.

"It was very wet, we were just driving on the A34 and looked up and realised one part of the sky was moving in one direction and another in the opposite direction,” Mr Glazer told the BBC.

"I thought, 'that looks like a tornado'. We pretty much drove through it, we were right underneath it. As we drove into it the trees were blowing left to right and as we got through it they were blowing the other way”.

Forecasters said that there is a “definite chance” that thunderstorms could return after the “special”
type of storm hit Oxfordshire. 

“This particular thunderstorm developed over the northern part of Wiltshire, and then gradually over the next three hours that storm tracked through Oxfordshire and into part of Buckinghamshire before eventually dying out before it got to Cambridgeshire,” said MeteoGroup forecaster Brendan Jones. “That's quite far for one thunderstorm to track.

"At the moment it's difficult to say exactly where the tornado was because while the parent thunderstorm travelled all the way across the south Midlands, it wasn't necessarily producing a tornado all the time. There has been more than one report of a tornado beneath this storm”.