Mr Kaye, chairman of the church hall, said: “We were very lucky. There was a zumba class in the hall at the time, but if they had been coming in or out, it would have been dangerous.”

Former Met Office weatherman Paul Stevens said that a cold front had moved into the area, causing a narrow squall line about 10 miles wide.

Within just 30 minutes the temperature dropped from 12 degrees to seven degrees, causing low pressure which rapidly sucked in and lifted the air. This came back down to earth as violent winds.

He said: “The convection and instability across this front could potentially have produced funnel clouds or even weak tornados.”

He recorded gusts of 58mph at his Salendine Nook weather station on Tuesday afternoon, although squalls could produce gusts of up to 80mph. There were unconfirmed reports of tornados near Sheffield and the north Midlands.

Mr Stevens added that if swirling gusts touch the earth, they are tornados, if they do not then they are funnel clouds.

At Scapegoat Hill, the turbine was destroyed by the fall which left debris strewn across the field.

Staff from Alternative Energy Contracting Ltd at Frosterley near Bishop Auckland in County Durham were at the scene yesterday.

Their head office was contacted twice by the Examiner but they did not want to say anything about the incident.