Twister unearths archaeologists

Rips through Lincolnshire

By Tracey Cooper • Get more from this author

Posted in Science, 18th August 2006 14:16 GMT

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Five archaeologists were ripped from terra firma by a freak tornado that whipped its way through Lincolnshire yesterday.

The archaeologists and archaeology students, working at a sand and gravel pit at Baston, were sheltering from the thunderstorm in a temporary canteen when the building was picked up and tossed 70 feet by the wind.

Four of the group were taken to hospital with what the BBC describes as "minor injuries". All have now been discharged.

ITV reports that youth worker Denham Hughes, 42, saw the tornado develop and said: "It went very dark and got a bit scary even before the rotating clouds progressed into a funnel and moved north. I could see sheets of metal and planks being sucked up 200ft into it as it got faster and faster and the bottom and top split and then joined up again."

A spokesman for the Met Office told the Cambridge Evening News (CEN) that the tornado was a funnel cloud, "a tornadic development that doesn't make contact with the ground". "The weather conditions were just right for this phenomenon to occur," he said

The thunderstorm also left 6,000 homes without power across the region.

We're just surprised the BBC's forecasting arm, renowned for spotting weather extremes, didn't predict this one. ®

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