Night terror

We had a dreadful storm last night too * Monica* - it started about 8-30 here with tremendous wind and then about 9 the electric went - just before Holby due on ( hour in front here) - so it was candle time. Got family to record last part of - one of us- for next visit to UK.
Our Electricity came back about midnight but the internet and telephone about 10 am - lots of leaves and fruit on the ground and a large piece of an acacia tree down but no real damage.
Nice and cool this morning.

M0nica we experienced that in the alpine bit of southern France when on holiday in the early 1990s. DS slept through it but my 10/11 year old daughter was terrified and piled into bed next to me. It was already very hot. Having another big hot body in the bed made it a lot worse. But no good parent would chuck their frightened child out of your bed.

A very wild storm here as well yesterday evening. Sheet lightening and strong winds, with rain later. Power off so went to bed at 9.30. Lots of dead branch fall, but no damage. Beautifully fresh and calm this morning, so got up early and cleared the ground. Winds can be useful sometimes.

We were expecting a storm last night, but only very heavy rain. It was a relief though - temperatures about 10° lower than the last few weeks.
We do get some dramatic storms, our border collie is terrified, she wanted to get in bed with me last time!

We had a thunderstorm here last night. Lots of lightning but only a few claps of thunder. All this was preceded by RAF planes on a night flight exercise from Spadeadam. This was just after I went to bed at 9pm. Needless to say, I didn't get to sleep until quite late, and then had to get up at 04:00 to go to work.

The irony is, I usually enjoy a good storm with all the thunder and rain as well as lightening and wind. It was the absence of thunder that so unnerved me.

I lived in Malaya when I was a child, where we had a lot of sheet lightening but it was always very low key, a bit like the northern lights at their milkiest just sheets of a soft light wandering across the sky. I did not realise that sheet lightening could be as bright as fork lighting and keep it going for such a long period.

I couldn't understand why we didn't have any - not even a drop of rain - when north of the city centre they had the full monty, even a small tornado apparently. My GS was at a football match with his daddy and they were right in the middle of it (under cover fortunately).

Much as we could have done with a good storm here last night I'm glad we didn't have yours M0nica It was still 22 degrees when I went to bed at 11pm last night and had dropped all the way to 20 deg. by 6 this morning

I spent about 3 weeks in N France about 50 years ago and can still remember the suddenness of thunderstorms that occurred about 4pm every day in August

Weather seems to be pursuing me, or running ahead of me, I am not sure which!

As we got to Portsmouth on the ferry this lunchtime we received a text from DD warning us of all the heavy rain overnight in Berkshire and South Oxfordshire, especially Didcot. We live a few miles from Didcot and there were flood warnings out for our village and a few neighbouring ones.

We had to take a circuitous route home to avoid the A34, spine road through the area because of problems at Newbury and the M4 junction, but got home safely and with surprising little evidence of what had happened only a few hours before. However for those who actually flooded they will still be suffering the effects for months.

My daughter's journey from north London to near Bath took her 7 1/2 hours yesterday, she said the M4 was at a standstill because of flooding near Reading.
We didn't have anything at all! No rain, thunder, lightning, nothing.

My, new to secondary school, granddaughter camped on Thursday night at school, part of team building. What a night to choose. Seemed to survive and have fun. Great to be 11 and with friends .