A tornado measuring more than 1,000m in height was recorded yesterday in Co Donegal.
Lecturer John O’Raw and his daughter Niamh were in their garden at Umricam near Buncrana when they spotted the tornado travelling over Sliabh Sneacht mountain at 11.30am.
“The twister was about two kilometres away from us and it was heading south,” Mr O’Raw said. “Sliabh Sneacht is over 600m in height, so the tornado must have been going up to over 1,000m.”
Mr O’Raw, who teaches computer science at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, was among a party who videoed orca whales off the coast of Co Donegal last week.
He is also a volunteer with the Seismology in Schools project that records earthquakes, including a sizeable one off Co Mayo last week.
“We’ve had a pretty exciting time of late. We had a transit of Venus on the same day as we got the footage of the killer whales.
“We then had an earthquake off Mayo; there was another tornado recorded near Inch island last week, and now this tornado. It is a very interesting time for local scientists.”
Watch a video at: youtu.be/hNWm0Ni_9HY