It was not the first, that tornado which swept through Selsey, near the Isle of Wight, last weekend. Much the same thing happened on January 8th, 1998. On that occasion it began as a "waterspout" at sea and then became a tornado as it moved eastwards across the headland known as Selsey Bill, leaving a two-mile trail of unprecedented destruction in its wake. By all accounts the private observatory of Selsey's most celebrated resident, the astronomer Patrick Moore, was severely damaged by the onslaught.
Tornadoes are best known for their frequency and spectacular ferocity on the Great Plains of the United States. That part of North America is often the meeting zone of a mass of warm, moist air advancing from the Gulf of Mexico and a cold blast moving down from the north-west; it therefore provides a favourite breeding ground and 20 or more tornadoes in a day are not uncommon in "Tornado Alley", the flat landscape stretching through the states of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. Next to this part of the US, large tornadoes are most common in the plains just east of the Andes in South America and in the eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent.
Tornadoes also occur in Ireland now and then. They are comparatively rare, probably fewer than 10 a year, and are considerably less vicious than their continental or transatlantic cousins, being not, as a general rule, life threatening. But they are full-blown tornadoes, none the less, quite different from the relatively minor "wind-devils" or "dust-devils" that occur from time to time on hot sunny afternoons in summer, well known to farmers as the impish scatterers of new-mown hay. Even Irish tornadoes leave a substantial trail of damage in their wake.
One of the most noteworthy instances was on August 8th, 1967, at Killeagh in Co Cork. The tornado developed at 4.30 a.m. and in the course of its brief destructive life it carved a swath of havoc 300 feet wide along a five-mile track between the neighbouring villages of Killeagh and Curraheen. Ricks of hay were lifted into the air and scattered over a wide area, slates were ripped from houses and trees in its path were felled or stripped of foliage. A similar event occurred near Ballyhaunis in Co Mayo in November 1977. A swirling funnel, 30 feet in diameter, formed around 10.45 a.m. and the damage was the same familiar litany.
And in Youghal, Co Cork, early in 1995, a tornado formed on the seafront about 7 a.m. during a hailstorm, from where it passed through a caravan site, and proceeded to advance slowly down the main street before it dissipated.