Freak tornado in English town rips roof off house

The house appeared to be the only one on its terrace to be seriously damaged by the wind (Pictures: Eddie Mitchell/PA)

A tornado that struck a West Sussex town has left one house on a street without a roof.

Residents of Littlehampton and Wick, near Worthing on the south coast of England, watched poor weather conditions bring particularly strong winds on Saturday evening.

The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO) confirmed a tornado with a T4 rating – meaning ‘severe’, with winds between 115-136 mph – had hit the area.

Pictures show a single house in a terrace of five that had its roof torn off by the extreme weather, which carried it over to the other side of the street.

Sky News reported that one person who was in the house at the time was taken to the hospital to be treated for shock, but nobody else was reported injured.

Investigators from TORRO descended on the scene yesterday to assess the path of destruction left by the tornado.

In a statement, the organisation said: ‘TORRO are very grateful to members of the public for providing information on damage and eyewitness accounts, which are invaluable in helping the analysis of this event.’

Littlehampton and Wick are among several areas around the UK currently under a yellow weather warning for rain.

Debris from the roof was carried over the street from the damaged house (Picture: Eddie Mitchell)

Yellow warnings for rain are in effect around the UK this morning (Picture: Metro.co.uk/Met Office)

There are Met Office alerts covering England’s south-east coast, the south of Wales and part of Northern Ireland today.

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Further warnings are in place for various other parts of the country for the next four days, with more likely to come into effect later in the week due to the arrival of the season’s next named storm.

Storm Ciarán will land on the UK’s shores this Thursday, the weather forecaster says, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to southern England and Wales.

Some parts of the south coast could experience winds of around 90mph, according to Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist Chris Almond.

He added: ‘Heavy and persistent rain will fall onto already saturated ground bringing a risk of further impacts such as flooding in areas that are already struggling to clean up from the heavy rainfall we have seen over the last week or so.’

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