Caught up with this on the BBC South Today programme this evening ...
they called it the obligatory 'mini-tornado'; it's a 'mini-cyclone' in
this report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/3963311.stm

Certainly the conditions (and the time of year - with the energy locked
up in the Channel) would lend credence to a tornadic event .... anyone
got any data down there?

A sad event - although these do occur with regularity (even if we can't
recognise them as such), they often do a lot of damage without
necessarily being fatal.

Martin.


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