As we made the international news on Monday due to our lovely weather, thought you guys might like to see what caused the problem.
All pictures where taken from Curium Hill. The first few are taken looking over towards the Hospital at Akrotiri and the last one taken looking over towards Limassol. Thats the little B*gg*r that did all the damage. Distance in the piccie is about 13 miles from where I was standing so I reckon at its top, it must have been around at least a half mile wide.
I then drove into town to get some stuff and on the way back drove down a street that looked like a squadron of AH64’s had been playing with !!!!. All the windows where blown in/out, every vehicle had major deris damage…caved in roofs, smashed windsreens etc… I saw an articulated lorry trailer upside down with its wheels in the air, one complete shop had just ceased to exist point blank. One of the garages had all its stock trashed…upside down, on top of each other, wrapped around trees etc.
AND YES IT REALLY WAS THAT DARK WHEN IT TOOK THE PICTURES AT 09.45.
Bladdy spooky or what
Pretty devastating.
But its sunny today !
cheers
Gary
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By: Arabella-Cox - 1st February 2003 at 02:29
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
No probs mate. You are correct that there was a major tornado in 1964, but I don’t recall the location. There was also a land-hit tornado in Paphos in 1989 near the Land Of The Kings archaeological reservation.
I have never seen a tornado in Cyprus myself, but I did see a dust-devil (micro-tornado) in 1998 in the village of Pareklissia near Limassol. It crossed my Grandfathers ranch from the south travelling north, and demolished a set of greenhouses before it hit our land and crossed right across at about 25-30 mph. I recall that the patio doors expanded outwards (caused by under-pressure) because of the dust-devil. It was frightening.
Launch at Twilight – “Thermal Crossover”
By: geedee - 31st January 2003 at 18:13
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
Twilight
The big one was one of four seperate twisters that formed at near enough the same time. It is unusual for them to come ashore, the last time was back in the late sixties according to the news out here.
Around this time of year you often get twisters. I have on video the first year I came out here, a shot of six all in a line starting off small to the right and getting progressively bigger until splashdown then fizzing out when the hit land to the left of where I was filming. Not summat you normally see around the UK.
Driving back from the Wessex Farewell display at Akrotiri this afternoon at 20 past 3, there were two samll twisters out towards Paphos but they never connected to the sea surface.
Thanx for the comments on the piccies. As I said, it really was that dark…and for 9.45 in the morning….well !
cheers
Gary
By: Arabella-Cox - 31st January 2003 at 17:40
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
I have to congratulate you on some excellent photos. Photo 2 is a text-book example of a tornado.
At the top you can see the thunderstorm super cell, which would have appeared to be rotating slowly, with a large bulbous “wall cloud” forming directly beneath the centre. Then dropping from the wall cloud is the primary vortex or “dominant” spout which descends to the surface of the sea.
Roughly how many separate tornadoes / water spouts did you hear about or sea that day in total??? It is likely they all formed from the same super cell, which is classic of a very violent storm which is rare in this region, probably because weather-patterns are highly dependent on global warming / el nino.
Again. Well done on some kick-ass pictures.
Twilight.
Launch at Twilight – “Thermal Crossover”
By: geedee - 31st January 2003 at 17:20
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
Yup…all mine. got some more but hey….once youve seen one…..
there were a few more floating round this afternoon but they were all well out to sea.
cheers
Gary
By: A330Crazy - 30th January 2003 at 23:43
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
That first pic just shows the tornado in its element. Did you take the pics? If so, good job, very clear images. 🙂
By: geedee - 30th January 2003 at 19:42
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
Well its funny you should say that….the Red Arrows (who’ve been out here practicing for a few weeks) suddenly werent around and there was a distinct lack of civvie jets going along the corridor into Paphos !!
I dunno…just cos of a little bit of turbulence ….!
Gotta admit tho’, it was chuffing awesome to see in action, and I really feel for those 40 odd people who where injured and all those who had property damaged / destroyed. there wouldn’t have been a thing they could do to stop it.
Cheers
Gary
By: A330Crazy - 30th January 2003 at 19:05
RE: tornadoes Cyprus style
Thanks for the pics GeeDee. I saw one in the Sun newspaper but it was in B&W. Now that it is shown in colour you can see how bad it really looks.
Must have given people quite a scare.
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January 30, 2003 at 2:02 pm