Herstmonceux Tornado: Experts investigating reports

Witnesses described the moment high winds hit the village of Herstmonceux, with trees were uprooted and insulation boards found miles away from home.

Members of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (Torro) are conducting an investigation into a potential extreme weather event in the area on Sunday, January 8.

Resident Debbie Bingham was staying in a caravan at the time, she said: “It came out of the blue and was absolutely petrifying.

“I’d just finished watching the Harry and Meghan documentary on Sunday, and my husband went to go have a shower ready for work tomorrow morning.

“I was laying down dozing, when I heard these little things hitting the caravan – like little balls. All of a sudden it got faster.

“Then the caravan started swaying. It sounded like a jumbo jet landing. It was over within literally seconds, although when you’re in the moment, it feels like hours.

“After that, it went quiet, there was not really much wind.”

A tree fell directly onto Debbie's awning (Image: Debbie Bingham)

Debbie and her husband went out to inspect the damage the following morning and discovered a tree had uprooted right next to her caravan.

“There was a tree in front of the window and a hole in the awning. We also had some insulation in front of our caravan, and that was found over a mile away.”

Debbie said she stayed away from home on Friday night after gusty winds were forecast.

“I’m still getting over it, I’m normally quite a hard person but this isn’t like anything I’ve experienced before," she added.

Buildings were damaged during the event (Image: Debbie Bingham)

Sarah Horton, site investigator at Torro said: “Somebody sent in a report of a tornado, and we’re in the middle of investigating at the moment.

“We’re still in the research phase, where we want to know how strong it was and how long it lasted.”

She took to local Facebook groups, along with calling people’s telephones to assess the damage caused by the unexpected weather.

While some of her colleagues will access radar and meteorological soundings to determine the atmospheric conditions at the time.

“My role is to look at satellite images and marry up what people told me with their photographs to plot the damage," she added.

Sarah plots all reports of damage onto a map, to identify the route the potential tornado took (Image: Sarah Horton / Google)

Sarah added: “The community have been brilliant, people get very engaged when this happens because it’s such a sudden and shocking thing that happens.

"Even weak tornadoes cause a lot of damage.”

Sarah is a volunteer at Torro, taking part in research alongside working as a maths tutor.

She added: “The people living here are quite unlucky to be hit.

"Tornadoes can be as small as 30 metres wide and nobody would’ve known about it at all if it didn’t hit a residential area."