The Wanstead storm

Wanstead weatherman Scott Whitehead has written on his blog about last night’s storm. He says it came after temperatures reached 34C in Wanstead – higher than the official recognised figure of 33.5C at Heathrow and Northolt.

At 1.45am, he writes, there was “multiple thunder, lightning and heavy rain with hail”.

He goes on:

“Then, bang, the storm hit Wanstead… Multiple crashes of loud thunder followed by, at one point, dazzling lightning flashes. You know how close a storm is by counting the seconds between lightning and peal of thunder. At 1.51am I barely counted to one between a dazzling flash and one of the loudest cracks of thunder I’ve heard. Only 6.5mm of rain was recorded, though this fell at a rate of 60mm/hr – the highest rate since I put the meteo live online last November. It doubled the previous highest rate.”

Wanstead in the news

Freaky number of mentions for Wanstead in the news this week.

Firstly there was the sad news of the death of actor Paul Bhattacharjee who, it’s reported, lived here.

Then there was the pardon given to the Wanstead men who had been jailed in Dubai after being found with synthetic cannabis.

After that came the grass fires which apparently took 120 firemen to extinguish.

And now comes the tale of Tamara Ecclestone’s husband who was robbed of a £50,000 Rolex and a £20,000 bracelet. The Daily Mail reports
“…he was driving home alone from a friend’s house shortly after midnight on Wednesday when his fuel gauge started flashing, so he stopped for petrol at a garage off the A12 in Wanstead, East London. He had gone to relieve himself in some bushes in a secluded corner when he was approached by two men who he claims threatened him before assaulting and robbing him.”