CCTV footage shows moment mini-tornado sends furniture flying at Suffolk storage site

• Watch as a mini-tornado hit a storage facility in Suffolk, but left neighbouring businesses untouched

A mini-tornado was caught on camera sending furniture and mattresses flying and tumbling at a storage site as staff running to safety.

CCTV from the site in Eye in Suffolk - filmed at around 12.30pm on Thursday - shows a breeze gradually building up to a full scale gust, causing furniture to fall from an open lorry.

It is then that warehouse manager Carl Stebbings runs out from the back of the lorry, while managing director Stuart McBurnley jumps out from the vehicle, landing on his knee.

A sofa is swept into the air and circles around before being blown out into the neighbouring field, along with several mattresses.

Part of another sofa is overturned, a rocking horse is blown out of sight and a hand pallet truck used to move heavy loads skids across the floor.

The two men struggle to hold their ground against the force of the wind and manage to run away from the scene to safety.

Mr McBurney described the 30-seconds of frenzy as an "eternity".

He said: "I was just thinking about getting to safety. I was frightened. It was like the world was going to end."

Bizarrely, many of the neighbouring businesses were untouched by the powerful wind funnel that wreaked havoc at Filing Fortress storage facility in Horham Road.

Recounting what happened, Mr McBurney, said: "I was on the lorry and Carl said 'it's getting a little bit windy'.

"And I say, 'yeah, so we better get finished'.

"And then the dust came up and the wind came up. There's a big pole in the lorry and I thought it was going to hit my head, so I jumped down.

"And the furniture hit the car and mattresses went on to the field."

He said the damage that was caused to the furniture and car, as well as lost property, could cost his business thousands of pounds.

He added: "It’s like having a little car crash, it feels like ages, but watching back the video, it was only 30 seconds."

Both men escaped without any major injuries, with Mr McBurney getting a cut on his knee from landing on the ground.

ITV News Anglia meteorologist Aisling Creevey says:

The weather conditions over the last few days have been prime for generating funnel clouds, which look like tiny tornadoes coming out of the base of the cloud.

A funnel cloud is a small rotating column of air but they don't touch the surface. These types of clouds can easily form during lively weather days or 'convective' weather days. This has been the case over the last few days with widespread heavy showers as well thunderstorms and hail.

However, as this video shows there is clearly a moment of air rotating at the surface where the furniture was lifted for a short time. So this looks like a mini tornado and no doubt a terrifying minute as the winds so rapidly changed with furniture flying around.

This video shows dry weather, but there were plenty of heavy and thundery showers circulating around at the time and the downdraft from these showers were the likely cause of the mini tornado.

Wind coming from different directions for a moment generating enough speed to create a circulation, one that was strong enough to lift furniture. It's not often we capture a video like this here in the UK.

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