The worst hail storm I have ever had the pleasure to witness.
England rarely gets weather this extreme, but on Thursday 28th June, a storm came our way to rival those of the American Midwest. I was working on an article, noticed the room had become forbiddingly dark, looked out the front window to the street and saw a sheer wall of shimmering pearly grey headed my way.
The rain fell at a 45 degree angle driven by a storm force wind, then hail stones began to appear and within a minute there was no rain to speak of, just ice balls of ever increasing size.
I started filming out of my bedroom back window, got a good slice of the start of the hail with stones the size of marbles falling, then it started to get far worse and by the end of the shot the stones are falling in a torrent of ice. Then, just as it started to get really violent, the camera battery gave out! Ahhh!
Afterwards, we had a minute of the most incredible intensity with stones the size of ping pong balls smashing into the ground. I'm sorry I missed it on video, but glad I wasn't looking through a lens when it happened, because I'd have missed the spectacle, and it was something worth savouring, because I doubt I'll ever see the like again in this country. Fantastic!
However, this torrent of frozen water, a month's worth of rain falling in five minutes, would hold serious repercussions in store for me by Friday night, when I'd be fishing at Harvington on the Middle Avon...
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