Tornado activity in Wales: an early success for the third-time stormchaser August, 2000 BACK TO WEATHER-BLOG MENU New! Fine Art Prints & digital images for sale- Welsh Weather & Dyfi Valley landscapes Slide-Library - Click HERE Tornadic activity occurs most years in Wales and the summer/autumn of 2000 saw quite a few, with some impressive photographs being taken near Llandudno in North Wales. But mainly they are not seen, occurring miles from nowhere in the Mid-Wales hills. Tornadoes can occur associated with all three categories of thundery weather outlined above. Here is an example from last year: it was only my third serious attempt at chasing after storms armed with a camera (as opposed to just going for a walk/drive with a camera), so I guess my luck was in! (update May 2005: it was: despite many days out there I have since only seen 5 more!) August 20th 2000: a hot-tish (for here) Sunday afternoon, and unstable southwesterly airflow covering Wales. I checked the latest radar image on the BBC weather site and headed off towards two sharply defined red echoes 15 miles to the SE, somewhere between Rhyader and Llanidloes. Climbed up the mountain road towards Dylife noting altocumulus towers going up rapidly to the S and SE, clear out to W. Got to the Wynford Vaughan-Thomas Memorial Pulpit (by the best view in the world), rounded the bend and saw this (below): a right old heartstopper of a moment!

I continued towards Dylife, and stopped about a mile from there. I was able to watch the funnel advance and retreat for a good 15 minutes. It was on the northern, leading edge of a developing cumulonimbus. The storm was drifting NNE at no more than 10 knots, and the precipitation core was some way off to the south. People driving past saw me with the camera and were asking if it was a tornado.

Here it is quite a solid-looking feature....

Elongating at times but not reaching the ground....

Here's a telephoto....

Then it started to retreat back up into the parent cloud...

This is a wide-angle shot taken moments before it disappeared for good. Its remains can be seen as a small lowering in the cloudbase, straight above the road. The disappearance coincided with the storm reaching maturity and the anvil streaming out above. This was a funnel-cloud related to strong updraught development during the developing stage of the storm: a classic example in fact. You are a lot less likely to see funnels or tornadoes descending from mature storms as in most cases the updraught has weakened and the storm is dropping its payload of rain or hail. This is what is known as a storm "breaking". (update May 2005: in fact the point just before the "breaking" offers the best chance of seeing something!) The precipitation to the south was obviously very heavy: a black curtain obscured the landscape.

Turning back towards Machynlleth, this was the view NNE from the Wynford Vaughan-Thomas pulpit. The distant high peak is Aran Fawddwy (2970 feet). The afternoon convection was now waning: although lighter showers still fell from altocumulus clouds these were not to develop any further. I headed back to Machynlleth for a celebratory pint....not bad at all for a third chase! DAMAGE REPORT! Why not check out my archive page on a devastating tornado that struck on a winter day a few years ago just up the coast from where I live? The Tywyn (Gwynedd) tornado, January 21 1995 BACK TO WEATHER-BLOG MENU New! Fine Art Prints & digital images for sale- Welsh Weather & Dyfi Valley landscapes Slide-Library - Click HERE