I had an experience a bit like that, but with mini-tornadoes, somewhere along the M11 in the UK (Essex I think, but perhaps the edge of Cambs). I recall looking it up afterwards and it seemed to be 'a thing', though none of the news examples I found from various years before the event were anything like as extreme - tens and tens of them, well-formed.
A truly bizarre 'what is happening' experience for me - before that I would've said flatly 'we don't get tornadoes here'. Never seen anything like it, before or since, nor even heard of it except for having looked into it then.
"the UK gets an average of 30-50 tornadoes a year. That’s more tornadoes per land area than anywhere else in the world (except – weirdly – the Netherlands.)"
While some do damage, I have to wonder if most of these events would be called merely whirlwinds or dust devils in most of the world? I'm also guessing that in an area of often high humidity, a funnel cloud might more easily form in a relatively weak whirlwind, that if it happened elsewhere.
Also, this is south-east England ("Berkshire into London") specifically, and also the Netherlands - some of the more densely populated parts of the globe, so I see a possible correlation to the density of observers here...
Yeah I'm from the Netherlands and I've seen several "tornadoes". However they're not the ones you see in the movies. They're real whirlwinds and I've seen them kill tents at campsites but buildings are generally fine. They come and go quickly.
They're high in number but I've never heard of one having a real mass-destructive effect like you see in the tornado areas in the US. I don't think we ever get that kind of thing.
I guess what makes us seem to have so many is not the actual occurrence of these but the high population density so there's always someone around to notice it. As opposed to some whirlwinds just spinning around in the desert.
A truly bizarre 'what is happening' experience for me - before that I would've said flatly 'we don't get tornadoes here'. Never seen anything like it, before or since, nor even heard of it except for having looked into it then.