Torrential Rainstorm!

[Smowball]

How odd - earlier this evening I was talking to MrSmow about weather in general. It’s been a gorgeous sunny warm day all day, and he said when was the last time we had a real thunderstorm, ie proper thunder, lightning, rain etc, and I said god knows!! Can’t even remember when. Went to bed to read etc, bout half hour ago I thought what on earth is that noise?? Looked outside and it’s probably some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen - our road is like a river!! It’s literally flood bound. No lightning etc but it looks mad lol!

[Buenchico]

There's plenty of heavy rain about tonight:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/uk
(Scroll down to the map)

. . . but it's the south-east of the country that can expect thunderstorms:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2022-05-19

I quite like thunderstorms but, having been in a house when it as struck by lightning (when I was a kid), I have to admit to feeling a bit nervous when they're really close by!

[Smowball]

Oh were you ?? Wow! Well I’m Greater London and the rain is insane at the moment !!

[JimF]

It's chucking it down in Glasgow at the minute too.

[Buenchico]

My parents' council house had the hot water tank in the airing cupboard in my bedroom. When the lightning hit its overflow pipe, projecting from the wall, the airing cupboard became an open-to-air cupboard when the bricks around the pipe got blasted out of the wall. It was a hell of a bang!

[Buenchico]

PS: Our family were fairly lucky. The following year lightning hit the home of one of the other kids in my year and completely ripped the roof off!

[JimF]

I was there!

[Buenchico]

I don't think that it's raining here in Suffolk at the moment. I'll know when it is when the first wet cat comes through the cat flap ;-)

[Buenchico]

I suspect that Jim has posted on the wrong thread but, as we're discussing lightning, Sparks seems to be quite appropriate anyway ;-)

[Buenchico]

Going by the coat of the feline weather monitor who's just come through the cat flap, it's still dry outside at the moment here ;-)

[Smowball]

One of my poor cats has just come in like a drowned rat!!

[sanmac]

A few years ago, a group of us were sitting on the porch of a lake-front cottage watching a spectacular late-night storm. We heard this tremendous crack and then a resounding thud behind the cottage. When things settled down, we went behind the building with a flash-light and saw a 3 foot piece of bark from a nearby tree deeply embedded in the wall of one of the bedrooms.

[Smowball]

Wow sanmac!

[Buenchico]

Yup, lightning definitely isn't a force to be argued with, Sanmac.

When I started teaching, the school's headteacher had only been in post for a short while. He'd been brought in at short notice after his predecessor, along with two of his kids, had been killed by a lightning strike on their tent in a French campsite.

[Smowball]

Omg buenchicho!!

[Buenchico]

The rain has just started here. (No feline help has been needed to come to that conclusion. I can hear it bucketing it down outside!)

That seems like a good cue for me to head up to bed, as I'm already way too far down this bottle of excellent vino anyway ;-)

(I hope that your soggy moggy has dried out, Smow)
;-)

G'night all!

[roopower]

Good morning. Sitting in bed reading last night and a very soggy moggy jumped up between us. She thought she could dry off by getting down the bed. How wrong she was!

[tiggerblue10]

It started around 11pm just south of Croydon. Loud thunder and lightning through the curtains. I was trying to sleep but the thunder kept me awake till very late. Good job I've got the morning off work. Little Tigs slept right through it.

[Smowball]

Tigger, where do you live??

[burlyshirley]

Lightning terrifies me, if I'm out and it all kicks off, I really panic as I know it can (and does) strike people and homes. I love a good heavy storm though as long as I'm indoors watching it !

[tiggerblue10]

Caterham now. I was in Thornton Heath but moved last year.