Heatwave, lightning, flooding...
and more to come...
THE bank holiday weekend brought a mix of sunshine, thunderstorms and fog, and some equally crazy behaviour.
As sunbathers relaxed on one beach yesterday, a base-jumper leapt from the clifftops 150ft above them.
Emergency crews were called to a hotel after guests sparked a fire scare with a barbecue on their balcony.
And as parts of the country bathed in temperatures of nearly 27C, torrential downpours caused flash floods and tragedy elsewhere.
Beachgoers in West Bay, Dorset, were said to have looked on in shock as a young man, wearing an orange crash helmet, jumped from the sandstone cliffs at around 1.50pm. A second, older man was stood with him at the top before the jump and held his parachute before letting go.
It took six seconds for the base-jumper, believed to be in his 20s, to land on the busy shingle beach. He gathered his equipment then fled.
Graham Hunt, who snapped his descent, said: “I can’t believe I’ve just seen a base-jumper leap off that cliff.
“There are hundreds of people sunbathing on and walking along the beach. If he had slightly caught the wind or misjudged it he could easily have landed on the people below.
“Everyone was in shock. It was bank holiday madness.”
HM Coastguard, which said it made several rescues yesterday when people floated out too far into the sea in inflatables, condemned the jump.