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.”