Filed under: Travel News
SWNS
Residents in a Gloucestershire village got a rather smelly surprise when it appeared to start raining seaweed.
Streets, homes, and gardens were covered in the marine algae after stormy weather apparently picked it up and carried it from Clevedon Beach, 20 miles away.
Extreme weather conditions likely created a tornado that picked up the seaweed from the beach in North Somerset, carrying it all the way to Berkeley, near Cheltenham.
One resident, Dr Richard Overton, 55, and his wife Kay, managed to pick up a whole bucket of the green slime from their front garden.
He told the Telegraph: "I looked out of the window after a very big storm finished and to my amazement there were lots of flakes of seaweed scattered over the garden.
"I've heard stories of fish being picked up and dumped by storms but never seaweed. I was just so surprised."
Weather expert, Ian Fergusson, from the Met Office, described how the incident could have been caused by thunderstorms on Clevedon Beach.
He told the Telegraph: "At the same time as this incident was reported there were several thunderstorms in the area, one of which pictured by satellites on a nearby beach.
"If one of the funnel clouds touched down onto the beach, making it a tornado, it could have quite possible picked up the seaweed and other debris if the tide was out and then later dumped it down the road at Berkeley Heath.
"It is a very strange event but it is possible. Look out for fish in your garden too!"
It's not the first time a UK town has been covered in a product originating from the sea; back in December, it was bubble trouble in the seaside town of Cleveley, near Blackpool, as the streets were flooded with a strange foam coming from the ocean.
A layer of oily bubbles whipped up by the sea covered cars, roads and houses, and left drivers struggling to make it through the streets.
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