Heavy gusts of wind have left a farmyard in Wexford “almost like a bomb site”, says farmer Nick White.

White, who runs a tillage farm and a contracting business in Killag, Co Wexford, says the farm dwelling was “shaking” in what he described as a “mini tornado”.

White woke at midnight on Tuesday night to what he thought was nearby thunder overhead. His family, including young children, also woke with the loud noise, which caused the house to shake.

While the farmer listened out for further thunder and at one stage even looked out his window, he observed no lightning and thought nothing more of it.

However, speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, White said that hours later, at 6am on Wednesday, he opened the front door to discover the destruction across his farm.

Pallets blown

The farmer said the wind had “torn through” a pile of fertiliser pallets behind a shed, lifting them over the shed roof and blowing them across the farm.

The pallets blown across the farm.

He said one pallet hit the roof of his house and knocked several slates to the ground. Others, he said, were blown as far as 150m, across ditches and into fields of livestock.

In total, White estimates that the heavy wind caused as much as €5,000 to €6,000 worth of damage. However, he said this has yet to be properly evaluated.

The tillage farmer described how skylights were “ripped from the shed roof” and said these sheets have not yet been found. Elsewhere, he said that the wind pulled up some steel sheeting on the roof of the shed and twisted other sheets. He said the wind also broke a brace and twisted a truss on the farm building.

Skylights were blown off the shed and have yet to be recovered.

White said that, luckily, no farm machinery was damaged and that he was relieved there was no livestock nearby. The wind damage was an isolated incident and no nearby neighbours have reported similar damage.