Stormy times
Ian Guy, maritime operations controller, said: “Jumping off a cliff and landing on a busy beach in the middle of a sunny bank holiday is extremely irresponsible.
“It could easily have caused injury to members of the public or the jumpers themselves.
“They were also standing right on the edge of unstable cliffs, which could have caused injury or worse to the people sitting beneath them.”
While in Folkestone, firefighters were scrambled to the 550-room Grand Burstin hotel after guests lit a disposable barbecue on their 12th-floor balcony on Sunday night.
Kent Fire and Rescue Service said guests lives were “put at great risk”.
The hottest temperature recorded yesterday was 26.4C in Gosport, Hants. Blackpool and Liverpool also had a share of the sunshine, with the mercury reaching 25C.
But cloud cover meant this year’s record is still 29.1C, on April 19 in St James’s Park, Central London.
By contrast, the West Midlands had flash floods on Sunday after a month’s rain fell in an hour. A major route into Birmingham became impassable due to 5ft-deep waters.
Edgbaston recorded 58mm of rain in an hour. Average rainfall for the month there is 55mm. And a man in his 80s died when his van became submerged in the floodwater in the early hours yesterday.
The Environment Agency had more than 20 flood warnings and more than 40 flood alerts in place for much of Central England. Forecasters said the “intense” weather is set to continue until Friday, with a weather lottery across Britain.
Met Office’s Dean Hall said: “It is staying warm but not as warm as the bank holiday weekend. There will be more storms and it will be humid day and night.
“Some of them could be quite potent, it would not be a surprise if there are further weather warnings.”
He added: “There is potential for more thunderstorms with the risk of hail and lightning, bringing surface flooding issues.
“Along the North Sea coast it will be cooler because of a lot of cloud and mist.” The best of the sunshine is likely to be in western Scotland.
HOT days and flash floods show just how extreme the British climate can be.
Whether the bank holiday weekend’s wild conditions are the man-made result of climate change or entirely natural is a question that scientists might not be able to answer for certain, for many years to come.
But we need to be able to deal with the fallout today. And, when flooding occurs, we see the foolishness of cutting local authorities and emergency services to the bone.
And, should insurance companies try to hide behind obscure small print to avoid compensation claims, they will deserve to be inundated with bucketloads criticism.