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.”
It was a tremendous storm and I’d agree the thunder was the loudest I’ve heard. In fact the penultimate clap was so loud it rattled our bed frame, leading to some unwelcome and pithy observations from Mrs Elrobertos.
it certainly was a dark and stormy night
Merely rattlling the bed is nothing to boast about , the missus and i were severly electrocuted when a rogue bolt of lightening came in through the window!! We were forced to sleep on our sofa, luckily our night gowns and caps remained unsinged