Up to 29,000 lightning strikes light up sky across southern England

The Met Office confirmed 29,000 lightning strikes in southern England between Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

This included cloud-to-cloud lightning as well as more “striking” cloud-to-ground fork illumination.

The number of lighting hits isn’t particularly unusual for storms developing after a hot, humid day, but the frequency and intensity of the lighting was spectacular.

While showers were forecast to move eastwards across the south of England last night, there will always be some uncertainty about exactly where and how severe the storms might be.

Besides lightning, Very heavy rains cause floods in some areas.

Severe storms developed due to several factors.

Firstly, it was very hot, if not hot, in southern England on Monday afternoon, with temperatures rising into the high 20s and low 30s.

This heat is transferred to the atmosphere, giving it a lot of energy. This energy is then primed for a trigger that will transform it into large cumulonimbus (thunder) clouds.

The trigger was an atmospheric disturbance higher up in the atmosphere; This caused all of the stored energy to be released, resulting in severe storms.