Gunnersbury 8 Dec 1954

[Deleted]

The local BBC TV news, reporting the tornado today, mentioned that a tornado hit Gunnersbury station on 8 December 1954, and showed a few pictures.

Anyone got any info on this?

[Hutch]

On the basis of 'fair use', I offer a very bad scan of Fig. 87 of Mitchell and Smith (1996), ISBN 1-873793-71-5:-

Press here

Hope this helps.

Hutch

[Deleted]

adw said:

The local BBC TV news, reporting the tornado today, mentioned that a tornado hit Gunnersbury station on 8 December 1954, and showed a few pictures.

Anyone got any info on this?

What's this about a Tornado!

[Chris W]

There's not much available (nothing on the BBC site), although I did find the following via the BBC webpage:
dux.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/british_weather_in_december.htm

TEXT
1954 A destructive tornado hit west and north London on the 8th in the late afternoon, injuring 12, during a very heavy thunderstorm. It destroyed Gunnersbury tube station in west London, ripping the roof off and injuring 6. A car was lifted 15' into the air at Acton. The tornado probably originated in the English channel, off Portsmouth, where a funnel cloud was reported as being sighted, and faded away in Herts. around 5.30 pm. It was associated with a thunderstorm; an inch of rain fell on London. On the 17-18th, 256 mm of rain fell over two days (153 mmon the 17 and 110 on the 18th) - if it had fallen in 24 hours this would have been the record daily rainfall to that date.

Hope that helps

[Deleted]

Thanks for the info, Hutch and Chris W.