Lauren

Good lord some people are getting HYSTERICAL on another forum I post on. I calmly pointed out the UK is incapable of having a hurricane and told them not to worry. This has been met with 'how dare you tell me not to worry, I have children for goodness sake!' I laugh.

I think the majority of the country who aren't really in the path of it are making too much of it. The East may very well see some decent stuff, but I think there's a hell of a lot of clutching of straws from everyone else. I'm not upset as I wasn't expecting anything in the first place.

If I'm being totally honest, i think people are thinking this is going to be much more impressive than it really will be.

So the SE looks to escape then?

Can see it approaching from my window now. Here now. Some dogwalkers in the field have just got soaked to the bone.

How would it hit you before it hit me?

How long till the heavy stuff hits us. It's started raining again here, but it's not heavy yet.

I see.

Looks pretty tame outside now.

Suddenly really picked up here.

It's died down again here. Definately had worse so far this year at the moment.

Tru dat.

Windy and rainy here. Can't say it's especially windy and rainy, though I hear it will get worse later. Only 1.5mm of rain so far.

Woohoo! In the pink zone. Wait a minute that sounds wrong....

62mph winds expected? Last time it was that windy I got blown over when I walked past a really tall building. It created a sort of wind tunnel. It would have been OK, except for it happened in front of a group of foreign tourists.

Woohoo. Should be fun. haven't had anything like that for a very long time.

Been pretty gusty here today.

We have hail forecast for 13.00 on the BBC. In all my life, I've never seen hail forecast on BBC, it's either been rain or snow. Of course it must have been forecast before, just never seen it.

Feels like I'm abroad outside. Nice and hot and humid with a sort of smoggy feel in the air.

Found my thunderstorm diaries that I used to keep (well 3 of them anyway). By this time in '97 we had already had 5 thunderstorms, 2 of which were all nighters. According to the diary, I classed a thunderstorm as being over 30 minutes long, anything shorter was classed as 'a day with thunder' of which we had had 23. Compare that to 2011, where we have had 2 thunder days and only one of those days could be considered a thunderstorm. I'm sorry i just don't buy it when people say we are having the same amount of storms as ever. On a separate note, it is almost quite smoggy today.

Thanks for simplifying things for me. My physics is not my strongest subject. I guess I just figured that on the way down to the floor that lightening might pass through you if you were touching something metal.

But what if your holding on to a railing or something else metal? Most of the floor is metal in that tower!

Would you get electrocuted if you were in the tower at the time, considering all the metal?

What a lovely day today and lots of fluffy CU about. makes a change from the cold grey days we've had recently.

Has Jane Louise found her way out of the NSC yet?