A weather phenomenon took scores of residents by surprise one summer.

Back in August 2014 people in Weymouth saw what they thought was a tornado swirling its way across the sky.

Residents pulled out their cameras to take a picture of the strange weather more commonly seen in the United States than the United Kingdom!

But instead of witnessing a real tornado, people were seeing a funnel cloud moving across town.

Sally Tyler was at work in Weymouth when she spotted the cloud travel up from the Channel and work its way inland.

It disappeared into the rest of the clouds over Ridgeway Hill at around 7.40am.

She said she watched it sweep across the landscape, adding: “It was a bit unusual. I have never seen one coming in land.

“It was huge. When it was travelling towards Hardy’s Monument it was quite big in size.

“It was changing constantly as it went along – it was rising and falling.”

Lorna Strong took a picture of the ‘twister’ as it travelled over Upwey.

She said: “I took them from Chapel Lane, looking towards Weymouth at about 7.30am. I have seen one once before a few years ago, from Upwey but not as good as this one.”

Karen Palmer said it was an unusual phenomenon to see.

She said: “We heard a clap of thunder which initially drew our attention to the sky, it was then we spotted the cloud. My first thoughts where that it might be a twister but we don't get many of those here do we?

“My son Ryan was intrigued by its formation, we watched it as it changed and curled up into itself.”

Funnel clouds form from condensed water droplets around a circling column of wind.

They tend not to reach the surface of the ground or water and form out of a main thick cloud base.

A spokesman for the Met Office said: “This looks like a funnel cloud.

“It hasn’t become a tornado because the tip hasn’t touched the ground. It may have done later on.”