Teenager tracks tornado's path

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Lennox Head tornado readers' photos (03/06/10)

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JOSH Crawford spotted the tornado that trashed Lennox Head as it bobbed along the waves off the town’s headland.

Josh, 16, said he saw what began as a waterspout running along the breakers, following the reef as it drifted north.

Then, when it got parallel with the Lennox pub, it veered left, tracking north-west into the village.

The first building hit by the tornado was the Lennox Point Holiday Apartments – but it wasn’t the worst hit.

From there it became hard for Josh, watching from Allens Parade, to tell precisely where the base of the tornado was – but it appears to have tracked roughly north-west, wreaking terrible havoc in Stewart Street and Gibbon Street, before demolishing a big chunk of the Lake Ainsworth Caravan Park.

“We could see from our house all the debris,” Josh said. “It looked like paper, but it turned out it was peoples’ roofs and stuff like that.”

Then it just disappeared.

Josh said the tornado appeared to lose strength and, as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone.