Pretty interesting and unusual event occurred yesterday in the Channel Islands to the S of the UK last night. A very deep Atlantic low (around 950mb) with pressure gradient related gusts in excess of 100-110mph was moving through the English Channel. Unexpectedly, a line of supercells developed ahead of the centre of the low.
One of these supercells actually struck the islands of Jersey, with very impressive structure on radar especially for NW European standards. Doppler radar even picked up a small velocity couplet:
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Initially very large hail reports started to come in. Unusual not only for the location, but the time of the year and the environment!
Then, reports started to come in of a tornado. Video here attached with some of the damage. Most of it is shingle/tile damage though some footage starting to come in of brick walls and buildings demolished, cars moved and upper levels of buildings destroyed. Run of the mill strong tornado for the US though in these parts this strength of tornado is much rarer.
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Even hints the trees have been stripped of branches of leaves and vegetation, something almost never seen in the British Isles.
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Likely going to be rated T5 on the TORRO scale, which would be the highest 'T-rated' tornado since 2006. Its possible the background winds of 50-70mph the time this occurred aided in some of the tornado's strength, though this does make one of the better candidates for an intense tornado in this region for a long time.