After the mother of all storms ...now for hottest day of year
BRITAIN was hit by the “mother of all thunderstorms” as Saturday’s balmy evening broke into torrential rain and spectacular lightning.
The Met Office confirmed that 62,598 lightning bolts – 20 times more than an average storm of 3,000 strikes – were recorded across the UK.
Data showed the strikes contained 15million kWh of energy, enough to boil water for 600 million cups of tea.
The storm started in the Southeast before midnight on Saturday and spread to Wales and the rest of England in the early hours yesterday.
More storms arrived later yesterday. A lower level “yellow” rain warning was in place overnight amid concerns of flooding in parts of central and southern England.
At the height of the storm, BBC weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker tweeted: “Mother of all thunderstorms now over London. Oh boy!
“This is utterly insane. I’ve never seen a storm with such frequent lightning in my life, I don’t think. Mostly sheet lightning and not too loud, but flashes are spectacular.”
In Colchester, the roof of a house was destroyed after being struck by lightning and catching fire during Saturday night’s storms. Firefighters fought the blaze for several hours but could not prevent extensive damage to the detached property. No one was at home at the time. Hundreds of passengers were stranded on planes at Stansted airport, Essex, after lightning struck a fuel tank, shutting the airport’s fuelling system. The airport apologised to passengers for any inconvenience.
But there was more confusion yesterday morning as passengers arrived to find their planes were cancelled.
Although the problem was fixed by 9am, passengers were warned to check with airlines before travelling. A Jet2.com flight to Tenerife was expected to be delayed by nine hours because of restrictions on the number of hours crew can work.
One angry passenger, Faith Hay, tweeted: “The airport has totally abandoned everyone. We are starving and have been on board for more than four-and-a-half hours.”