Monday, May 19, 2008

The Great British Weather 15.05.1697


I gave this fascinating book (“The Wrong Kind of Snow”) to hubby as part of his birthday present. It gives interseting facts, little stories and all sorts of bits of info on our crazy British weather for every day of the year.

I meant to post this on the right day, but completely forgot, never mind its only a few days late and! This is especially for Sue
15th May

The severest hailstorm ever to strike Britain, according to the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO), strikes Hitchin and Offley in Hertfordshire today in 1697. On the TORRO Hail Scale (a sort of Richter scale for hailstorms) this storm is graded H8 out of a possible 10. Several British Hailstorms have been graded H7 but this is the only one to make the magic H8 – though how a storm can be confidently graded three centuries after the event is a little hard to understand. The hailstones are up to 4 inches (110mm) in diameter – about the size of tennis balls.

(from “The Wrong Kind of Snow” by Antony Woodward & Robert Penn)

5 comments:

Janice said...

Sounds like the sort of book my DH would like too!

Angelnorth said...

Ouch!

Bex said...

"The hailstones are up to 4 inches (1110mm) in diameter"

Flippin nora - glad I moved away if you get them over a metre wide!!!

:)

Anice said...

Thems were big hailstones!!
Anice xx

Anonymous said...

oh wow...I remember it well PMSL!!


seriously I do I did a project on Hitchn and Offa - as it was called on my youth many many years ago

Sadly I only remember the useless stuff like the tale you told nothing important