By Isle of Wight Observer
The Isle of Wight Observer published on 28th, June 1856 included a tale about a remarkable weather event.
A TORNADO. – An unusual phenomenon occurred at Weeks’, near Ryde, about 1 o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday. The day had been intensely hot, with scarcely breeze sufficient to stir a leaf or wave a flag, when suddenly a tornado arose about half-a-mile in circumference, in the centre of which was a hay field. About a ton of hay was carried up in a remarkable manner, some was twisted and ascended in columns perpendicularly, and some was rent into chaff and spread over a great space resembling a flight from a rookery. Around the edges of the tornado many laundresses reside, and their clothes hung out to dry were torn from the lines and carried up high in the air. At the time there was a remarkable stillness a few yards from the spot where the phenomenon occurred.