My parents have a house in that area, and told me of that mini tornado just today before this post.They had a stable door blown off on an outbuilding.But these mini tornados are very localised and rare .
Just to dispel some inaccuracies in this thread, the UK has the highest number of reported tornadoes in the World based on land mass…
We do not have in this country widespread devastation like they do in America or the Caribbean e.g like Hurricane Katrina causing levees to break .Also with other hurricanes and tornadoes causing hundreds of square miles of damaged property and numerous deaths in the past. They do have mini tornadoes here but the devastation is localised and damage is rare on a scale to compared to other countries like usa .We do not have a National Hurricane Centre like in USA that predicts cyclones forming and naming them female and male names alternatively. I pitch regulary on a north sea facing clifftop and take the brunt of exposed weather. If i thought the chances of a mini tornado would hit my caravan, i would give up caravanning. The satellite pictures that you do see on tv now and again of a large omg hurricane over the atlantic and heading for eastern seaboard of usa and the caribbean if that happened out in the north sea and was heading towards north norfolk i would have to dig a huge pit and strap my caravan down in it ,with permission of site owners of course .
Post last edited on 09/12/2006 21:31:22
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Do you suffer from an OCD. Obsessive Caravan Disorder.
We do not have in this country widespread devastation like they do in America or the Caribbean e.g like Hurricane Katrina causing levees to break .Also with other hurricanes and tornadoes causing hundreds of square miles of damaged property and numerous deaths in the past. They do have mini tornadoes here but the devastation is localised and damage is rare on a scale to compared to other countries like usa .We do not have a National Hurricane Centre like in USA that predicts cyclones forming and naming them female and male names alternatively. I pitch regulary on a north sea facing clifftop and take the brunt of exposed weather. If i thought the chances of a mini tornado would hit my caravan, i would give up caravanning. The satellite pictures that you do see on tv now and again of a large omg hurricane over the atlantic and heading for eastern seaboard of usa and the caribbean if that happened out in the north sea and was heading towards north norfolk i would have to dig a huge pit and strap my caravan down in it with permission of site owners of course
Again, sorry to be picky but the above is totally inaccurate. A hurricane and tornado are not the same. A hurricane encompasses a huge land/sea area while a tornado is a concentrated storm less than a mile wide, typically .5km. A HURRICANE will cause far more damage due to it size, where as a TORNADO will do more localised damaged. A HURRICANE develops over warm seas (+27C), the reason you will never get one in the UK. This is why HURRICANES make the news far more often than TORNADOES. As I said, we have far more TORNADOES in the UK per square mile of land than any other country. We dont have a HURRICANE advisory center as the UK will never have a HURRICANE, we do however have a TORNADO advisory centre, TORRO. We will never have a HURRICANE due to our location on the Earth.
Quote: Originally posted by marie35 on 06/12/2006
hi going away this weekend and worried about the winds we r on a hill and very opened planned no where to hide, has anybody got ang advice on high winds except dont go ,has anybody ever had a caravan tipped or am i just worring for nowt marie
At the end of the day a lady "marie35" a fellow caravanner posted a thread here worried about going away for the weekend and the position of her caravan on a hill and myself looking at her worry over high winds, she did not put in "capitals" the actual type of severe wind e.g hurricane,tornado or cyclone etc but I felt her anguish as my partner she gets very nervous in severe wind as i stated earlier. I felt qualified to respond with position of our caravan in a very exposed location and give her reassurance which i did and was appreciated. Yes caravans can tip over in mini-tornado situations but are very isolated and need to be put in perspective , i did know from general knowledge that are many mini-tornados in this country but do not amount to widespread damage as in the case of usa, caribbean where i mentioned earlier tornados,hurricanes and cyclones. You mentioned "torro" but has to be put in perspective of asking your average uk person do they know the organisation, i think not.As opposed to usa if you mentioned National Hurricane Centre, i would think thousands if not millions would know as have thousands have been evacuated and millions have been worried of a life or death severe wind situation.
We all could look up meteorological definitions and give Micheal Fish definitions of severe wind but after all this is a camping website and specifically this section is a caravan forum.
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Do you suffer from an OCD. Obsessive Caravan Disorder.
I should imagine caravans getting blown over on campsites are very rare. Here is one which rolled, without a tornado, but it was freak conditions in a very exposed part of the country.
Around about the same time last year a man died on Skye when his tent was blown over a cliff.
Much more likely I would have thought is the possibility of a caravan being blown over when towing. High sided vehicles are prone to getting tipped on the roads. That is why you often hear on the news that bridges are closed to high sided vehicles. I remember driving home from Glasgow on a bad night last year (150 miles) and seeing three tipped HGV's on the way. It seems to be a big gust which does the damage- not consistently high winds. I have also seen an occasional tipped caravan under the same circumstances.
Quote: Originally posted by marie35 on 06/12/2006 hi going away this weekend and worried about the winds we r on a hill and very opened planned no where to hide, has anybody got ang advice on high winds except dont go ,has anybody ever had a caravan tipped or am i just worring for nowt marie
At the end of the day a lady "marie35" a fellow caravanner posted a thread here worried about going away for the weekend and the position of her caravan on a hill and myself looking at her worry over high winds, she did not put in "capitals" the actual type of severe wind e.g hurricane,tornado or cyclone etc but I felt her anguish as my partner she gets very nervous in severe wind as i stated earlier. I felt qualified to respond with position of our caravan in a very exposed location and give her reassurance which i did and was appreciated. Yes caravans can tip over in mini-tornado situations but are very isolated and need to be put in perspective , i did know from general knowledge that are many mini-tornados in this country but do not amount to widespread damage as in the case of usa, caribbean where i mentioned earlier tornados,hurricanes and cyclones. You mentioned "torro" but has to be put in perspective of asking your average uk person do they know the organisation, i think not.As opposed to usa if you mentioned National Hurricane Centre, i would think thousands if not millions would know as have thousands have been evacuated and millions have been worried of a life or death severe wind situation.
We all could look up meteorological definitions and give Micheal Fish definitions of severe wind but after all this is a camping website and specifically this section is a caravan forum.
The OP asked a question, I gave an answer that yes caravans can be turned over in high winds by posting a link to a news story. You were the one that decided to take it off topic by mentioning that it was caused by a tornado and stating these are very rare.
You gave marie35 a totally innacurate answer. I simply wanted to put this right, however you seem unable to accept this by making comparisons with the USA, which is pointless as our two climates are very different.
Do a search on the BBC website for tornado and you will see how many news reports there are for tornados in the UK. I will agree the chances of being in your caravan whilst a tornado hits is very slight, however if high winds have been forecast and you are worried about staying in a caravan during high winds, the simple answer is leave it until it's not forecast to be windy.
It was actually yourself first who mentioned tornado by giving link to this bbc report "Small 'tornado' batters village" . I replied to it as actually my parents caught tail end of the incident i was amazed the coincidence of my mother telling me story a couple of hours before of their own personal damage in this incident . But not to alarm marie35 and put her off caravannning for life with scare stories i thought it best to put into the reality of severe wind in this country . You did after say" I will agree the chances of being in your caravan whilst a tornado hits is very slight". I made a comaparison with usa to put it into perspective.
I do hope marie35 if she did go away this weekend had good weather and did not get unduly worried.
As i go to "Blockbuster" i must look out for a uk film version of "Twister" the film, just kidding RFLMAO
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Do you suffer from an OCD. Obsessive Caravan Disorder.
Quote: Originally posted by scuba on 10/12/2006
I made a comaparison with usa to put it into perspective.
OK, so not a single hurricane made landfall in the US this year, but in the UK we have two tornadoes in the last two weeks.................
And to correct you; I made no reference of tornadoes in my original post I simply posted a link after saying "Yes, here is a link to the BBC news website showing an overturned caravan due to high winds"
This was a factual event and was not intended as scare mongering. The OP asked a question to which I gave a factual reply.
So to remain on topic; yes caravans can be blown over by high winds, the chances of this happening when pitched are slight, however travelling to your destination in high winds carries with it a far higher risk of your caravan being blown over, this I have had first hand experience of whilst travelling to Cumbria on the M6 recently, having passed an outfit that was barely able to remain in one lane, a little further along I came across a jack knifed outfit and on my way back saw another outfit on the hard shoulder facing the wrong way. There may have been other factors involved but I suspect the high winds on that day had a large part to play in these accidents.
To the OP; if you are in anyway worried about the wind affecting your caravan it is probably a good idea not to go away.
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Topic: high winds
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