16th June - Today's News

Got my first thunderstorm of the year yesterday evening - just: it really passed just south of me but gave a little rain, a couple of bright flashes of lightning and a good half an hour or more of rumbling thunder.

Elsewhere in Britain there was rather more rain, thunder and lightning though. East Anglia was worst affected as a "biblical storm" hit Suffolk, with flood chaos in Norfolk, thousands of homes left without power and Ipswich Railway station evacuated after a lightning strike - causing plenty of addition problems for commuters. I used to live in Ipswich. And it was there I last experienced a really good thunderstorm. In 1994! Hmmm, I think I live in the wrong place! In Essex three homes were struck by lightning and one of my old schools, Mayflower, was flooded. Rail travel was also disrupted due to flooded lines in Scotland whilst in Wales lightning brought down power cables. Problems also from lightning strikes and flash floods in Yorkshire, Northumberland and County Durham. Whilst in Wallington, South London, a woman was rescued from a sinking car during flash floods there.

Of course, the Daily Express provided their usual meteorological accuracy telling us of flash-flood chaos as a month of rain falls - the highest official rainfall total was just 20mm (about 1/3 of a months rainfall) at Coleshill in Warwickshire and most places received a lot less than that. Of course, 10mm of rain falling very quickly can soon overwhelm Victorian drains and that's what leads to town centre flash flooding. Here in Evesham we did get a month's worth of rain fall over the course of 2 days earlier this month - it caused exactly no flooding at all.

Fortunately no serious injuries reported from the storms, but on Sunday 16 cattle sheltering under a tree were killed by lightning.

Meanwhile, down under, a Polar blast shuts Dunedin schools, in China, a hailstorm killed 14 people and left thousands homeless and power supplies have been restored in Russia


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

23rd September - Today's News: Climate Change Impacts "Accelerating"

11th October - Today's News: Race on to Protect Bangkok from Floods

25th July - Today's News: Fatal Chinese Bullet Train Crash Caused by Lightning