Daytime Darkness: The Storms Of August 1981

[johnholmes]

Somewhere in the Met O archives there is a write up about this, either Met Mag or Weather. Widespread hail with one BA skipper bring some in a container ( ice box) to show the size and odd shapes. This from somewhere down the, in those days, main Manchester-Liverpool main road.

I'll see if I can find anyting about it as I was a forecaster at Manchester Airport at the time.

[The PIT]

I can't recall anything around that date. In those days we used to get storms so I suspect we just got a run of the mill storm which today would be severe.

I do remember one storm that developed overhead and it went dark and all the horizons were light and it reminded me off St Helens when a guy was walking out of the ash cloud. Good storm though when it got going.

[Timmytour]

I recall being stuck on a train home for a long time on one of the old door-slam types where there were compartments rather than carriages.  I guess the reason must have been related to the amount of rain that had fallen.  I even think I remember Cheshunt getting a mention on the news as being hit by four inches of rain in an hour.  None of the 12 or so people in the compartment were talking at first but soon we all were discussing when we'd ever seen such rain before.  Will never forget the beautiful girl  that was sitting opposite me who I regrettably never saw again!   

[A Face like Thunder]

I remember it well. I was working at Hinchley Wood in Surrey at the time. The 5th had been the hottest day of the summer but morning storms were forecast for the 6th in the south east of England. I remember approaching the start of the then new A3 Esher bypass and seeing what looked like a wall of smoke ahead. It turned out to be the first of the storms and I only just made it to work before the heavens opened. The morning was punctuated with near darkness and thunderstorms, the last of which at midday saw water pouring past our single-storey offices. It turned out someone had deposited a supermarket trolley in the culvert at the top of the site and it was obviously not able to cope with the water as a result. The Croydon Advertiser had photos of the near darkness and flooding in South Croydon. I recall 1.78 ins of rain fell that morning in London and it surprised me when I heard later that parts of Cheshire and South Manchester had had twice that amount of rainfall.

[Norrance]

I was working in London at the time based in Tottenham Court Road. My main memory was of the darkness and the  street lights coming on. Heavy rain and thunder and lightning. Great to watch out of the window from the comfort of the office.

edit. I just checked my weather diary for that day and see that I noted two distinct thunderstorms. One at 9.30AM and the one that brought darkness at 1.30PM

Edited January 10, 2020 by Norrance

[Sunny76]

I might have already commented on this thread lol. This is one of my earliest weather memories, as I was 5 at the time.

I used to think it was the eclipse which was responsible for all the darkness. 
 

However, by reading Britweather years, the storm event was described as unusual with dark clouds towering at 50,000 feet.

I wonder did they have to reroute flights that day? The turbulence would have been terrifying. 

[stainesbloke]

These severe thunderstorms were some of the earliest that I remember (I was 8 at the time). I clearly remember looking out of the window in the morning and the sky looked very disturbed with roiling dark clouds. Staines didn’t get hit directly by that first storm but there was plenty of thunder for a while. Then the main storm hit around lunchtime. It went darker and darker quite quickly, we all started looking outside and then the streetlights came on. I remember an eerie silence as well. Then all hell broke loose, constant forked lightning overhead, very loud thunder and torrential rain. Our street was under an inch or two of water. I was actually quite frightened but what made it seem worse was my Mum’s look of worry and her keeping us away from the windows and huddled together in the bedroom. Seemed to go on for some time! I remember the news report on ITN and that some engineers had been struck by lightning up the road at Heathrow. That event was the start of my love of thunderstorms and weather in general.

[Sunny76]

Does anyone have pictures from that day.

Not the ones taken at Kingswood or over St Pauls London. 

[tcc]

I was 10 at the time and lived in Lancing, I remember in the morning that it thundered constantly with lots of rain but no flooding, also it wasn't particularly dark.

It was only when I looked at the news in the evening that it talked about the darkness over London in the afternoon, which made me think that was the storm I witnessed first thing in the morning. it's amazing what you remember from your childhood!

[A Face like Thunder]

21 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

Does anyone have pictures from that day.

Not the ones taken at Kingswood or over St Pauls London. 

In their 'Surrey Weather Book', Mark Davison & Ian Currie have a classic photo of flooding at the Swan and Sugar Loaf, South Croydon following the storms of 6th August 1981. However I'm not sure that I can scan it because of copyright issues. 

[A Face like Thunder]

On 18/02/2020 at 17:34, Sunny76 said:

Does anyone have pictures from that day.

Not the ones taken at Kingswood or over St Pauls London. 

I have finally located these from Purley. The first was taken at midday and the second must have followed soon after.

[the storm fisherman]

I was 16 at the time but the local BBC South TV news had a big feature at the time with a reporter at Gatwick Airport. 

[Sunny76]

I have an image in my mind of what the storms must have looked like over the London skyline. Giant black clouds, deep into the upper atmosphere. A large dark spaceship- like shelf cloud as dark as night.

I remember how it felt when I was in the living room as a 5 year old, and not quite understanding why it was like nighttime during the day. It was also very hot and humid. 

[Jbeesfan]

I remember this like it was yesterday.

it had been very humid the night before and we were woken up at dawn by a moderate thunderstorm. But, it didn’t get any cooler. It fact it was really sticky.

we lived about a 40 min bus ride from Heathrow. My dad went to work. And it started to get darker. And darker and darker. Then, in the distance you could hear sporadic booms. Not cracking like normal thunder or rolling, but a boom, twenty seconds, boom again. 
this went on for a while. My mother was petrified of thunderstorms, and wasn’t happy with the earlier one. I remember standing in the back garden looking at the sky. And it just kept getting darker and darker. Again, no lightning  just boom. No lightning at this point at all.

Then it started to rain quite hard. By this time it was almost twilight. It probably was between around 8.30-9.00am. Then all hell broke loose.

it turned into a pretty nasty storm. It went on a long time. My mother went and hid under the coat rack at the bottom of the stairs, and although by then storms didn’t bother me, i went and sat on the stairs.

After the big pre-amble i don’t remember it going on terribly long. But when it stopped the air had thankfully, cleared and the garden was full of hail stones about the size of large marbles.

i was 18 at the time. That night myself and my (then) boyfriend went up to central London to have a meal with some of his friends. They were talking about the storm too. One of the girls had been caught out waiting for a bus and got soaked.

The only other storm i remember, apart from the 87 hurricane, was a big one in West/North Yorkshire in the summer of 1990. I was stuck on York Station for five hours. That day in York was so humid you could scarcely breathe. We were all so packed in on York Station, no trains going in out or anywhere at all. The staff announced over the loud speaker that free tea, coffe and soft drinks were available. When i finally got on the train (all the Pantagraph electric wires were down at Doncaster) the storm raged all the way to Darlington. It began at around 5pm and was still raging when i got off the train, at around half ten, and bolted for my house in Northallerton in pouring rain. It was the overdue Edinburgh train and jammed pack. I looked out the window and ALL the fields were like lakes in the dark. No one seems to recall that one.

i

Edited July 31, 2020 by Jbeesfan
Miss spellings and extra details

[Sunny76]

15 hours ago, Jbeesfan said:

I remember this like it was yesterday.

it had been very humid the night before and we were woken up at dawn by a moderate thunderstorm. But, it didn’t get any cooler. It fact it was really sticky.

we lived about a 40 min bus ride from Heathrow. My dad went to work. And it started to get darker. And darker and darker. Then, in the distance you could hear sporadic booms. Not cracking like normal thunder or rolling, but a boom, twenty seconds, boom again. 
this went on for a while. My mother was petrified of thunderstorms, and wasn’t happy with the earlier one. I remember standing in the back garden looking at the sky. And it just kept getting darker and darker. Again, no lightning  just boom. No lightning at this point at all.

Then it started to rain quite hard. By this time it was almost twilight. It probably was between around 8.30-9.00am. Then all hell broke loose.

it turned into a pretty nasty storm. It went on a long time. My mother went and hid under the coat rack at the bottom of the stairs, and although by then storms didn’t bother me, i went and sat on the stairs.

After the big pre-amble i don’t remember it going on terribly long. But when it stopped the air had thankfully, cleared and the garden was full of hail stones about the size of large marbles.

i was 18 at the time. That night myself and my (then) boyfriend went up to central London to have a meal with some of his friends. They were talking about the storm too. One of the girls had been caught out waiting for a bus and got soaked.

The only other storm i remember, apart from the 87 hurricane, was a big one in West/North Yorkshire in the summer of 1990. I was stuck on York Station for five hours. That day in York was so humid you could scarcely breathe. We were all so packed in on York Station, no trains going in out or anywhere at all. The staff announced over the loud speaker that free tea, coffe and soft drinks were available. When i finally got on the train (all the Pantagraph electric wires were down at Doncaster) the storm raged all the way to Darlington. It began at around 5pm and was still raging when i got off the train, at around half ten, and bolted for my house in Northallerton in pouring rain. It was the overdue Edinburgh train and jammed pack. I looked out the window and ALL the fields were like lakes in the dark. No one seems to recall that one.

i

Sounds interesting.

I wonder if we will ever get a storm like that again. 39 years and counting, and nothing like it has hit London and South East england since. 

[SummerShower]

On 31/07/2020 at 21:58, Jbeesfan said:

I remember this like it was yesterday.

it had been very humid the night before and we were woken up at dawn by a moderate thunderstorm. But, it didn’t get any cooler. It fact it was really sticky.

we lived about a 40 min bus ride from Heathrow. My dad went to work. And it started to get darker. And darker and darker. Then, in the distance you could hear sporadic booms. Not cracking like normal thunder or rolling, but a boom, twenty seconds, boom again. 
this went on for a while. My mother was petrified of thunderstorms, and wasn’t happy with the earlier one. I remember standing in the back garden looking at the sky. And it just kept getting darker and darker. Again, no lightning  just boom. No lightning at this point at all.

Sounds like an amazing storm, would have loved to have experienced that.  The deep booming thunder is the best type.  It is often more atmospheric than the closer shotgun or rolling claps style of thunder. What causes it to sound like this?   I suspect it is either when the wind is blowing directly from the storm at a distance, or if it is approaching from a hilly area.  If a plume storm approaches from the south we quite often get this, and we have gently rolling hills in this direction.

Edited August 2, 2020 by SummerShower

[A Face like Thunder]

39 years ago today but I remember it as if it were yesterday. I've been out of the South East since 1989 and so cannot comment on whether a similar storm has affected the region since then, but it sure was a memorable day!

[Sunny76]

13 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

39 years ago today but I remember it as if it were yesterday. I've been out of the South East since 1989 and so cannot comment on whether a similar storm has affected the region since then, but it sure was a memorable day!

Not to my knowledge, and I’ve lived in the southeast most of my life, apart from August 1999-March 2001.

Maybe this current hot spell will trigger something similar.

[Sajid sarwar]

Yes i remember the vicous storm, thunder and lightening of August 1981 so well as i was almost 8yrs old at the time i was with my dad and middle brother walking through Brick lane in the eastend of London when during late morning it became so dark and then the heavens opened unleashing brutal thunder & lightening when we came home my mum was hiding underneath the stairs with my 4yrs ol brother...

[A Face like Thunder]

On 18/02/2020 at 17:34, Sunny76 said:

Does anyone have pictures from that day.

Not the ones taken at Kingswood or over St Pauls London. 

This one has just emerged from a family album. It was taken in Purley, south of Croydon, and shows the aftermath of the midday storm during which day turned into night. 

[Azazel]

The only time I've seen daytime darkness was from an amazing storm in the south in late May 1999 - it might have been the very last day of May in-fact.

I was climbing a tree at the time and spotted this beautifully text-book defined anvil to the south-west, so I climbed down and let the boys know it was probably going to thunder in a bit.

Being absolute mad-lads at 14, we went and stole some beers from my friend's dad's fridge and sat in his garden which overlooked the village and skies to the south-west.

As the storm approached and moved in-front of the sun, it took on an incredibly dark appearance with a low, well-defined, raggedy, scuddy base and the visible sky beneath went a brilliant orange.

Wanting a closer look, we walked the 300 yards or so down into the village centre.

This is when it ramped up a notch. It was only I believe 2-3pm, but the street lights came on. I could not believe how dark it was this close to the summer solstice in the middle of the afternoon - without exaggerating, it felt like twilight. There was an eerie silence and heaviness in the air and people in the village centre began scattering for shelter. The wind was warm and instead of typically blowing away from the storm, it was blowing into the storm and the clouds began to take on a really ominous, sea-green colour contrasted with bright grey/white bits of scud which swirled in different directions. As I watched, the clouds began to rotate and "suck up" in the middle. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - it looked like some weird CGI effect and totally alien to anything I've ever seen before.

I think people i've spoken to about this storm have checked the charts and it was an MCS - but perhaps this daughter cell took on brief supercellular characteristics? Because I am convinced I was looking directly into a meso.

As it moved over the top of us, the heavens opened with some absolutely incredible tropical rainfall, moderate hail and vivid blue/pink lightning.

 

I have never seen anything like it since and I doubt I will ever see anything like it ever again.

 

I went to Florida the next day so that was a great summer for storms for me!

 

EDIT: Didn't the Newcastle storm of 2012 feature some gnarly daytime darkness?

Edited February 18, 2021 by Azazel

[emmett garland]

My recollection of daytime to darkness was August 24th 1990 in Dublin.I lived in whitehall about 3 miles north of city centre and is basically on a hill rising up from the city.I was 20 at the time and was in my parents house which had the attic converted and as myself and 4 brothers were watching telly at around 5 30 pm it suddenly became very dark.I got up and went out the back garden and it was noticable aws the lack of any structure in the sky I wished someone or any of my family had mentioned  change or saw a giant anvil maybe, however there was not a breath of wind and the sky was getting darker when suddenly the boom so with that I ran straight up to the attic and opened the velux window and stuck my head out along with my brother stephen ( my twin ) and the other brothers we could see in the front garden.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               There from our vantage point we were looking south and east towards the city looking down and at this point visibilty was about a half a mile and it was dry but the air very thick and sticky ill never forget it. We could here the booms of thunder but no lightning and the storm from what I found out later was growing and moving slowly north. At around 5 57pm ( I took photos of this storm and the camera I had showed time and date but so sad these photos have been lost in house moving over the years) I could clearly see the half a mile had become about 300m and at this point all the traffic coming from the city as we lived on a mian road had ther full headlights on and the street lights came on. Now for me personally and my brother what happened next was quite extraordinary, it was still dry but we noticed cars had wipers on and the visibilty was now about 200m with boom boom but no visisble lightning and when the visibility hit 120m which we could see the big oaks near the bus stop at the end of the road you could hear this whooosh roar sound and we realised it was the rain. At that point I can only describe the wall of water moving 10m a second until it engufed the house and had my brothers in the front garden scurrying in.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Now you could see flashes at this time but no dramatic forked lightning, all cars were stopped at this point but we got into fits of giggles due to fact that we were witnessing something we had never seen before or since as a guy on a motor bike somehow just kept going may trying to outrun it but he was all over the place.The rain was truly tropical and pavement to road became the same level with water. I have travelled to many tropical places and with hand on heart this was the most intense rain I have ever witnessed.The sheer noise in that attic and the view , the flooding,the darkness ,the drama and all over by 6 23pm and all in the home I grew up in. I was hooked on weather since ex hurricane charley excactly almost 4 years to the day previously in 1986 and we have had our fare share of thunderstorms since incuding the mega outbreak of June 1985 in Dublin but these were vivid lightning (another storey) .It was in all accounts a local event and Im so glad that our house was in the bullseye..

[Andy Bown]

5 hours ago, Azazel said:

The only time I've seen daytime darkness was from an amazing storm in the south in late May 1999.

I think people i've spoken to about this storm have checked the charts and it was an MCS - but perhaps this daughter cell took on brief supercellular characteristics? Because I am convinced I was looking directly into a meso.

As it moved over the top of us, the heavens opened with some absolutely incredible tropical rainfall, moderate hail and vivid blue/pink lightning.

 

I have never seen anything like it since and I doubt I will ever see anything like it ever again.

 

 

Great account. That was almost certainly a Saturday afternoon? 

[MP-R]

5 hours ago, Azazel said:

The only time I've seen daytime darkness was from an amazing storm in the south in late May 1999 - it might have been the very last day of May in-fact.

I was climbing a tree at the time and spotted this beautifully text-book defined anvil to the south-west, so I climbed down and let the boys know it was probably going to thunder in a bit.

Being absolute mad-lads at 14, we went and stole some beers from my friend's dad's fridge and sat in his garden which overlooked the village and skies to the south-west.

As the storm approached and moved in-front of the sun, it took on an incredibly dark appearance with a low, well-defined, raggedy, scuddy base and the visible sky beneath went a brilliant orange.

Wanting a closer look, we walked the 300 yards or so down into the village centre.

This is when it ramped up a notch. It was only I believe 2-3pm, but the street lights came on. I could not believe how dark it was this close to the summer solstice in the middle of the afternoon - without exaggerating, it felt like twilight. There was an eerie silence and heaviness in the air and people in the village centre began scattering for shelter. The wind was warm and instead of typically blowing away from the storm, it was blowing into the storm and the clouds began to take on a really ominous, sea-green colour contrasted with bright grey/white bits of scud which swirled in different directions. As I watched, the clouds began to rotate and "suck up" in the middle. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - it looked like some weird CGI effect and totally alien to anything I've ever seen before.

I think people i've spoken to about this storm have checked the charts and it was an MCS - but perhaps this daughter cell took on brief supercellular characteristics? Because I am convinced I was looking directly into a meso.

As it moved over the top of us, the heavens opened with some absolutely incredible tropical rainfall, moderate hail and vivid blue/pink lightning.

 

I have never seen anything like it since and I doubt I will ever see anything like it ever again.

 

I went to Florida the next day so that was a great summer for storms for me!

 

EDIT: Didn't the Newcastle storm of 2012 feature some gnarly daytime darkness?

 

2 minutes ago, Andy Bown said:

Great account. That was almost certainly a Saturday afternoon? 

29th May 1999 - absolute belter of a storm here in North Somerset. Only two days after the previous humdingers of the night of 27th May. There was also another thundery period on 1st/2nd June. A thundery period that was in a thundery summer!

[Azazel]

16 minutes ago, Andy Bown said:

Great account. That was almost certainly a Saturday afternoon? 

It must’ve been yes because I wasn’t at school!