One of the strangest things I've ever seen was a weather event in the Birmingham area round about 1980 (I can't be sure of the exact year). I was working for Lucas Girling at Tyseley at the time, and I'd been on my own in a room without windows. When I came back into the main office area something was different, but what? Then I realised it was pitch black outside even though it was the middle of the day. Everyone was staring out of the windows and asking (not entirely jokingly) if this was the end of the world. The sky stayed black for some time then it seemed to turn green before going back to normal. At the same time there was a massive amount of rain. Some parked vehicles wouldn't start afterwards because water had got right inside their engines causing a hydraulic lock. Fortunately my trusty old Transit just managed to turn over and fire. Does anyone else remember this event? I've never seen anything like it since.

Edited By John Barber 5 on 25/07/2023 11:53:11

Continued from previous post.

The storm also disrupted the electricity supply, the telephone network and the railway service. Many people had to be rescued by the fire brigade or the police from their flooded properties or vehicles. Fortunately, there were no fatalities or serious injuries reported, but many people were left homeless or without essential services.

The storm of July 14, 1981, was described as a “once in a lifetime” event by some meteorologists, who compared it to the Lynmouth flood of 1952 or the Boscastle flood of 2004. It remains one of the worst floods in Birmingham’s history.

If that had happened today, the climate change nutters would claim it was because of global warming !!!!

The only nutters are the people that disparage the scientific backing of climate change.

Andrew.

Edited By Andrew Tinsley on 27/07/2023 11:45:01

That black thunder and lightning cloud that went over the Forth Road Bridge a few years ago

A chap got photos of it

The lightning only travelled around the cloud, lots of rumbling, I think it rained a bit

(Maybe it was an alien spaceship on holiday)

A rainbow.

Strange?

It is when only one colour – yellow.

.

Two very odd cloud effects.

1) Flying back to Bristol I think, from Glasgow in the middle of the day we were above a complete sea of cloud right across the country. It was split by a single, nearly straight rift of clear air that would have been well under a mile wide, stretching away Eastwards into the distance.

Whilst I have seen other cloud patterns that suggest very long (miles) wavelength pressure-waves, eddies, shears and such-like in the air, this feature defied any basic physics.

.

2) Late one night, in a clear and moonless sky some distance from any towns, seeing what appeared to be a vapour-trail form. Then three more developed, creating something like the letter 'Pi' in the sky (couldn't resist that), with a diagonal across it.

Vapour-trails? Well, central Dorset is not far from Hurn Airport, and only 70-80 miles from each of Exeter, Bristol and Southampton Airports; but these things developed along their full length not from the leading "end". and there were no signs of aircraft lights. Also they did not disperse in the way exhaust trails usually do, and the entire pattern slowly drifted away, gradually fading as it went.