Could the heatwave bring storms like 1976?

The heatwave that blasted the UK in the summer of 1976 was one of the longest in living memory and triggered the most significant drought for at least the past 150 years.

But the dry spell was occasionally interrupted by violent storms of the kind likely to hit the UK again over the next few days.

Metofficearchivesreveal thunderstorms occurred “in many districts” during the first half of July 1976, with heavy rain causing local flooding on several days. On 12 July, 1976, a man was killed at Clapham near Bedford when the cab of his lorry was struck by lightning. On the same day, 64.8mm of rain was recorded at Sudborough in Northamptonshire.

The rest of the month saw more settled weather before storms returned briefly in early August.

On 3 August, 17mm of rain fell at Marham in Norfolk in under an hour, and a cruiser moored on the Norfolk Broads was struck by lightning. But the biggest storms came at the end of August, breaking the heatwave and the drought in spectacular style.

On 29 August, 39.5mm of rain fell in Princetown in Devon in the space of just one hour and 24 minutes.

This set the pattern for September, which ended up being the wettest in England and Wales since 1918.