WATCH: Terrifying footage of fence panel flying close to learner driver on lesson during so-called 'mini-tornado' in Northampton

A driving instructor has released dashcam footage of a fence panel flying close to her car during a lesson in Northampton during what some thought was a 'mini-tornado'.

Sharon Carter from Meadow Driving School was out with a pupil at around 11am yesterday (Sunday, October 31) when heavy rain and high speed winds - thought at the time to be a mini tornado - hit the town.

At 11.15am, Sharon was in the passenger seat with her pupil driving on Meadow Close in Duston when she spotted a piece of wood flying around.

The instructor said: “We’d just done pulling up on the right as that’s one of the maneuvers for the test.

“We started driving off again as it started raining. You could see ahead of us the torrential rain.

“Then suddenly the wind went crazy and I could see a large piece of wood blowing in the wind ahead of us.

“I asked the pupil to stop and as we stopped we could see the fence panel.

“If we hadn’t stopped because of the other piece of wood I think the panel would have hit us. We were lucky.”

Following the near miss, Sharon asked her pupil to pull over and the duo waited for the worst of the weather to pass before continuing.

Sharon added: “My pupil had said to me not long before that she hadn’t driven much in the rain, so it was good experience for her.

“We then carried on and drove on roads where trees were down so that was also good for her to deal with.

“My advice for that kind of weather would be not to drive if you can possibly help it and just be aware of what is around you.”

Yesterday’s weather left destruction on the roads and in gardens and parks across the county after emergency services received more than 400 calls and power companies were called out to deal with outages.

Although winds reached up to 70mph and the swirling gales made it look like a tornado, meteorologists have since dismissed this, saying it was actually 'straight line winds'.

See images of the damage left behind in our round-up here.