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County hit by fierce storm
Tuesday 29th July 2008, 11:50AM BST.
Shropshire’s mini-heatwave was brought to a spectacular end last night when a ferocious thunderstorm and monsoon-style rain wreaked havoc across the county.
Hundreds of homes and businesses across the region were flooded and football matches involving both Shrewsbury Town and AFC Telford were also hit during the deluge.
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Power lines were also brought down, blacking out homes, when the storm hit at about 8pm and the sudden downpours led to a string of road accidents. Lightning strikes sparked at least one blaze.
The storms brought an end to the hottest day of the year so far in the county when temperatures soared to 27.5C (81F).
During the day two children had to be rescued by an off-duty policeman after becoming trapped in the River Tern, near Tern Hill, when they went in to cool off.
Meanwhile a 21-year-old Shrewsbury woman was hauled from the sea by her friends after getting into difficulties while swimming off the Welsh coast.
She was carried away by the current after going into the water fully dressed on Saturday at Cemetery Beach in Aberdovey. She was flown to hospital where she is still being treated.
Today Shropshire Star weatherman John Warner said: “I had one report that 40mm of rain fell in the Edgmond area, near Newport, in about four hours last night. That is almost 2ins of rain and the bulk of that came down in around half an hour.”
A fusebox in a bus garage in Wellington was set ablaze in an incident thought to have been caused by a lightning strike but the bulk of incidents during the downpours involved homes and gardens being flooded.
Emergency services were kept at full stretch and Shropshire Fire Service dealt with more than 50 calls in just a two-hour period when the storm was at its height. The workload was compounded by fire alarms being triggered by the lightning when there was no fire.
A fire service spokeswoman said: “The worst places affected appeared to have been Wellington, Telford and up into Lilleshall. We worked on our emergency plans and were busy getting sandbags out to numerous places.”
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You would think we have never experienced thunder storms in this country before.
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its global warming, we never had this when i was a boy, we will be a monsson country soon, mark my words
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That was such a good storm, loved it!
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its the end of the world as we know it…Its global warming… its chicken lickings version of the sky falling in.. Oh hang on its a thunder storm…what is it with people today? We get a drop of rain and its a monsoon..What about the winter of 1947 or the winter of 1963 or the summer of 1977 and come to think of it all the other wet summers and harsh winters we have had, since records began
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tom thomas – it is not global warming. We have always had freak storms like this. When I was a child 50 years ago I can remember similar storms. People are always very quick to jump on the global warmimg band wagon. It is only by looking at waether patterns over the next few hundred years can it be confirmed if this is global warming.
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Well i think its natures way of saying that its still in control and i thought it was amazing :) Yes ok the rain was heavy but it didn’t last for days and at least it cooled the air down.
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Just a note for all you amateur meteorologists……a monsoon is a wind NOT rain.
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its not exactly that major – happens every wimbeldon
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Global warming is a myth, all day long I sit in my office with hundreds of other staff exhaling co2 and occasionally methane! if I fill a room with carbon dioxide it doesn’t get any warmer, if it does, i just turn the air conditioning on, its all about the EU taking over, nothing to do with fossil fuels, we should all just have nuclear power that will sort it, global warming, global swindle more like, just like the Channel 4 programme proved, its all nonesense designed to put our taxes up
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monsoon a wind, more like a wind up. tell this to the indians, they are half drowned at the momement by the annual rainy season, called the monsoon
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down here we had severe thunderstorms and tropical downpoors. we were lucky half a millemetre and no thunder
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I think the people belittling the storm and ridiculing those saying how bad it was, need to understand the heaviest rain was extremely localised. Just because they didnt experience it does not mean it didnt happen.
I have lived in my current property for over 15 years and never had a problem with flooding as I live nearly at the top of a hill.
Last night however, the downpour was so heavy the rainwater poured straight down the road, down our drive and flooded the garage.
Of course part of the problem is being caused by so many people replacing their front gardens with paved drives across the whole of their frontages. All of the water that used to soak into the ground now pours onto the roads and has to be accomodated by the drains. Its no surprise they cant cope when we get extreme weather.
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It was a dramatic storm what ever anyone says and it certainly doesn’t happen every day. As for gobal warming tom thomas sounds like he’s only joking!
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its quite often that a large thunderstorm marks the end of summer. hope you all had a nice summer, soon be christmas..
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Devon Salopian
Definition of monsoon
A system of winds that influences the climate of a large area and that reverses direction with the seasons. Monsoons are caused primarily by the much greater annual variation in temperature over large areas of land than over large areas of adjacent ocean water. This variation causes an excess of atmospheric pressure over the continents in the winter, and a deficit in the summer. The disparity causes strong winds to blow between the ocean and the land, bringing heavy seasonal rainfall.
Note it says WIND not rain.
It just happens to rain a lot during the monsoon (windy) season.
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you are all doomed, the planet will cook, you will fry, the end of the world is nigh
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I went through the hurricane 1987 down south, this storm was nothing!!!
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Dear “The Devil”
It is not a coincidence that there is a lot of rain during monsoon season, it is the monsoon itself (the strong winds) which brings in water from the sea. This is because of condensation of water vapour in the rising air.
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Yes but it doesn’t always rain!
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