Following a week of sweltering heat, a festival-goer caught the dramatic moment a mini-tornado struck a festival, with the swirling winds wrecking havoc over the campground.
Emma Baskeyfield, 21, and several pals were attending the annual Boomtown festival in Winchester, Hampshire, when the terrible gusts swept across the campground, allegedly lifting camp chairs 60 feet into the air.
The student, from Manchester, was awakened by the intense storm on the festival’s last day after a week of scorching weather. The event, which took place on the Matterley Estate in the South Downs National Park, finished last Sunday.
Emma caught the micro tornado as it swept the festivalgoers’ tents off the ground, tore them apart, threw air mattresses into the air, and even caught one tent as it collided with an electrical pole.
In a video she posted on TikTok, Ms. Baskeyfield demonstrates how the high winds may also wash over metal fences and gazebos, move trash, and damage electrical lines.
The disturbing incident, according to Ms. Baskeyfield, “came out of nowhere, it was so bizarre.” It had been quite warm and windless for the whole week when this tornado suddenly occurred.
More footage of the unexpected event has been extensively disseminated online, revealing the devastation left by the micro tornado, including things that seem to have been tangled in trees while witnesses gasp in shock.
Samuel James, a 23-year-old student from Surrey, described what he saw to The Telegraph: “It came down the bottom of the valley, grabbed up people’s tents, and totally flung them out of the site.”
Tents and gables also flew into the air, he said. It lasted for about 30 and 60 seconds.
Fortunately, we were out of the way. It seemed to be a twister because you could see it twisting dust approximately 60 feet into the air.
The Met Office said the bizarre weather occurrence could have really been a tornado after seeing the video.
According to a spokeswoman, the tornado was “indirectly connected to the heat,” MailOnline was informed. This is due to the fact that it was made possible by the thunderstorms that followed the most recent heatwave.
They said, “It’s difficult to identify what the precise weather setup was without knowing the precise moment the film was captured.
Around 5 o’clock on Sunday, there were showers in that area, and the conditions would have been favourable for a brief tornado outbreak.
There is a possibility that it could be a “dust devil” if it wasn’t present at that time. A dust devil is essentially some swirling air that can happen when the ground is dry and high temperatures produce powerful updrafts.
Tornadoes are vertical air funnels that spin quickly and have wind speeds of up to 250 mph.
When warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air, meteorological phenomena are created. Thunderstorms frequently result from the pushing of the colder, denser air over the warmer air.
If winds suddenly change in speed or direction, the warm air will rise through the colder air and create an updraft, which will then begin to rotate.
Every year, the UK is typically hit by about 30 thunderstorms.
A Boomtown representative told MailOnline that the band was aware of the incident and added that there had been no reports of injuries.