The Herne Bay Tornado of 17th November 1906

[Jamie M]

 

I was having a scour of newspaper archives the other day & found mentions of a 'whirlwind' that struck Herne Bay just after 2 pm.

It seems to follow the normal SW to NE track typical of UK tornadoes, spanning over 3 miles in just under 3 minutes. 

Newspapers from London Daily News & the local Whitstable Times & Herne Bay Herald both describe the events of the day with a 'brief period of darkness' with residents reporting a 'noise like thunder' before fences were levelled, trees were blown over & windows were blown in.

I had not heard anything like this before & I'm shocked I haven't considering the damage & extremity of it with the wind was estimated to be 'blowing at the rate of over a hundred miles an hour.'

The long track of this as well as the roaring noise typical of tornadoes suggests that this was no straight line winds & a tornado, probably spawned off an embedded thunderstorm along the cold front arriving that afternoon.

   

I have plotted a rough estimated track of the tornado based on a 1906 map of the town with notable points such as a farm nearby the station being hit & Beltinge sustaining damage as good indication points:

I have not been able to find any more details on how wide the tornado was or any pictures of any damage. I believe the track on that map comes just over the 3 mile mark but I cannot be sure. I'd estimate it to be around a T3 tornado.

Reanalysis of the day from 12:00 UTC does show colder air arriving from the NW going from 8c 850hpa temps to below 0c 850hPa temps.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Jamiee

[Jamie M]

Turns out there's a proper entry for this one in the ESWD database using the new Tornado Archive Data Explorer.

Although, the International Journal of Meteorology doesn't give as many references as the Whitstable one that can be seen on the left which occurred in 1980.