NEWPORT residents were left shaken when a “mini-tornado” tore up their street- ripping a roof from a house and scatter debris and garden furniture across the street and gardens.

Resident Mark Spencer said what he described as a "mini- tornado" left debris in gardens and damaged a roof on Goya Close in St Julian’s at around 9.30am yesterday.

His daughter, Claire Spencer, described how the whirling wind and rain picked up wheelie bins as it passed her property.

She said: “I heard loud banging on our roof and I thought it was coming off, but it was pieces of a neighbour’s roof blowing into ours.

“When I went outside, the roof was everywhere.”

In the garden a neighbour’s metal chair had been carried over a fence and dumped in her pond.

She added: “I have never seen anything like it. It was frightening and everyone was panicking.

“It is like something out of a film as you don’t expect a tornado to happen here.”

She said that roof debris was so big that it dented a metal shed when parts were blown into it.

Couple, Pat and Gary Wilding , who have lived in their property on Goya Close for 62 years, were inside the house when the roof was ripped off.

She said: “We heard noise that sounded like thunder, but it must have been our roof.

“I went upstairs and water was pouring into the bathroom.”

She explained that the roof caused “havoc” as big pieces smashed fences, a green house and was strewn across the street.

“It has completely destroyed our garden” she added. “The pieces went everywhere.”

Luckily a neighbour quickly organised his company to come and patch the roof up.

Another resident, who lives off Goya Close, on Kelly Road, said she saw the whirling tornado pass her house.

Janine Spencer said: “I was getting my baby changed to go out and I heard the rain pick up and then saw it was swirling.

“It was very quick, but when I went outside afterwards, you could see debris blowing around, and all of the bins all knocked over.”

She then spoke to her father in law on Goya Close, Mr Spencer, who explained their road had saw the brunt of it.

Gwent astronomer, Jonathan Powell, described it as a “freak" weather, but that tornados are usually caused by very unstable air, like the sort of thundery conditions experienced yesterday with up-draft and down-drafts.

He added: “Most mini tornadoes go unseen but this one seems pretty intense, 60 to 70 mph winds violently rotating as a result of unstable air.

“In these conditions nothing is safe, even animals, a cat was one lifted six feet in the air in the path of a mini tornado. It could of been a lot worse and it's good nobody got injured.”