Weather stories

A Lord of the Rings sky stretched across the broad river at Burnham with long twisted fingers of purple cloud clawing down towards the mirror calm water below. The late August day had been hot and strange, and the sea wall at Burnham was lined with people looking at the ominous sky.

On the opposite bank dust started lifting in twists from the bone-dry wheatfield - weird in the windless conditions. The twists reached up to a thin, dark finger that hooked down from the cloudbase. I turned to my friend:
'Brian, that looks like a tornado.'
'It is a f****** tornado!'

Fully formed, snaking skywards, the twister tripped over the sea wall opposite and hit the river like the finger of God. The river burst into a frothing white hiss under its impact and yachts at their moorings were blasted over onto their sides as the tornado ripped across the water towards us. We watched, hypnotised, until we were shot-blasted with stones and straw from a field over half a mile away. We ducked behind the sea wall as the twister broke on the town's defences and vanished in a whirling flurry of tiles and straw. We looked around. The quay was already deserted.

Summer 1996, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex
Submitted online by Nick Skeens, March 4 2004