A 'MINI tornado' tearing through a field was captured on camera by a shocked resident as it swept past her back yard.

Abigail Salkeld, from Barrowford, said the swirling wind which caused freshly cut grass to be whipped up was like nothing she had ever seen before.

And the quick-thinking 23-year-old managed to film the funnel cloud on her phone as it made its way past her house.

Abigail, of Bankfold, said she watched in horror as the rotating column of air came close to the window.

She said: “At first, it took a while to register what it actually was. Once I realised, I really panicked.

“My first thought was where is my cat Coco?

“She was inside thankfully and although all our holiday washing was out, at no point was I prepared to go and get it.”

The East Lancashire NHS sonographer, who also runs chair cover hire company My Chair Covers from her home, said she might not have noticed the natural phenomenon had hay in the fields at the back of her house not been recently cut.

She said: “I was just taking some covers out of the washing in the kitchen and was talking to my mother-in-law-to-be. I saw a lot of grass in the air behind her.

“It moved from the centre of the field down towards the house, so we were worried.

“But then it began to move back away, so I thought it was safe to video.

“I thought my fiance would not believe us, so I needed to take a video.”

The twister lasted for about 10 minutes in total, making its way away from the village and finally ending in the nearby countryside.