Possible Tornado Hits Essex as Witness Reports Leaves Engaged in "Not a Normal Sort of Behaviour" and Britain Bravely Goes Inside

The most British disaster report of the year did not begin with a siren. It began with a woman in a garden, a pile of leaves, and the quiet suspicion that the foliage was up to something.

In Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, at about 11:40 on Sunday morning, strong winds tore roof tiles off a house, felled trees and left a chimney stack lying on the ground like a wedding guest who found the sherry. Resident Gillian Lamb, gardening on nearby Newport Way, then delivered the eyewitness account meteorology schools will be quoting for generations: "Leaves and sticks were doing a little swirl and did whoosh all around."

Then came the forensic finding. "It wasn't a normal sort of behaviour for the leaves," she said. In America that sentence would trigger a congressional hearing. In Essex it is the strongest language permitted on a Sunday. The leaves have not been charged, but they have been asked not to leave the county, which is awkward, because leaving is the only thing leaves do.

Her emergency response was textbook. "Then the rain came a bit heavier, and then we just went inside because obviously it had got too difficult to garden." Americans flee tornadoes. The British retreat from them with the mild disappointment of someone whose pruning has been postponed. The wind lasted no longer than five minutes and scattered the cushions on her garden furniture, which in Frinton counts as looting.

The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, TORRO, a group whose name sounds like a wrestler and whose job is mostly saying "possibly," said it was too early to know what happened. A spokesperson blamed a "cold pool aloft coming westwards" from the continent, landing on warm seas after "such a hot summer." So the culprit is European air arriving uninvited and wrecking an English garden, which is precisely the thing Brexit was supposed to stop.

Waterspouts had been reported off the Kent coast earlier that morning, so TORRO suggested the Frinton event may have formed at sea and come ashore, the way most trouble in English history has. "We won't know exactly whether this was a tornado, or just strong, gusty winds associated with the showers, until a full investigation into the damage has been undertaken," the spokesperson said. The chimney has declined to comment on the advice of its lawyer.

The Met Office said it had not been sent any footage from Frinton, then added: "But the weather, set up in the area of thunderstorms and intense showers, do make it all very plausible." That is the meteorological version of a detective saying the butler had a knife, a motive and a hat, but nobody filmed it, so tea, anyone?

On Monday, a giant waterspout was also spotted off Looe in Cornwall, travelling along the eastern edge of Looe Island before moving inland with heavy rain. Britain now has more spinning columns than a Roman ruin, and roughly the same sense of urgency about them.

TORRO has asked anyone with information to get in touch. Investigators are expected to interview the cushions first. They were closest to the scene, they were thrown around, and frankly they have been through enough.

The leaves, meanwhile, are back lying flat on the lawn, perfectly still, doing an excellent impression of a normal sort of behaviour. Nobody in Frinton is fooled. They will be raked at dawn.