What happened to our summer?
If you live in Britain, you had your answer yesterday. If you’re one of my many readers from outside the UK, you may be astonished to learn that yesterday we had what the “Guardian” newspaper called “some of the heaviest rainfall in living memory” which, at its worst, represented two months of rain in just one day – more information here.
Fortunately I was working at home yesterday, so I stayed dry but, around 11 am, we had the most ferocious thunderstorm that I can remember. There was absolutely torrential rain, the wind howled, and there was a flash of lightning and an explosion of thunder that seemed to make the house jump and absolutely terrified our cat Honey who spent the whole storm hiding under a bed.
Water dripped into a spare bedroom wardrobe for the first time in the 23 years that we’ve lived here (I think that the strength of the wind forced the rain into a tiny crack in a roof over the extension). Since we live on a hill, the rain poured through the bottom of the garage door and down into the back garden.
And yet, it all stopped as suddenly as it started and we were able to have lunch on the terrace.
July 21st, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Normally, the North East is ‘shipping’ (by tanker) water to Yorkshire and the South.
We have been watching the rain South of us for the past month.
It has taken three weeks for my rain barrel to fill. We are just getting the tail-end.
I like being tail-end Charlie at present.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 am
I know the feeling. At home in The Netherlands and on holiday in Germany I’ve these past weeks also experienced the most severe thunderstorms ever. Look at http://www.meteoalarm.nl to see something is definitely and fast turming wrong with the climate in Europe.