UK weather: Hail, heavy rain and thunder hit parts of England

Hailstorms, heavy rain and thunder have battered parts of England as forecasters issued a yellow weather warning.

The Met Office alert covered southern England, East Anglia and parts of the Midlands – with a radar image showing a band of intense rain stretching across the country on Tuesday.

George Dibley, from Basingstoke in Hampshire, said the rain was “crazy to see and hear” and that it felt like someone was knocking on his window.

“We got worried at one point that if the hail got any bigger it might damage our car, but thankfully it only lasted a few minutes,” he said.

Another Basingstoke resident, Sam Middleton-Bray, posted pictures and video of large hailstones falling in her garden.

“That was some insane weather today here in Basingstoke. I’ve never seen hail that size,” she tweeted.

A weather watcher was also shaken up by lightning and a huge clap of thunder as he filmed under a storm in Warwickshire, saying it was “the closest I’ve seen in my life”.

The heavy rain also brought flooding to some areas, with Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service saying they had received calls from people stuck in water.

In Bathealton in Somerset, Val Coots said her garden had been flooded by a stream – as often happens – but that Tuesday’s deluge was “on a different scale though, really unbelievable”.

“The stream rose about a foot above the level of the garden and whole parts either side were completely submerged,” she said.

Also in Somerset, sixteen-year-old Eleanor Wicks nearly got stuck when a bridge flooded in Bruton.

“It was very shocking because it had been raining for about three solid hours and we had to try to find a way around it, through a flooded footbridge,” she said.

“Our car was on the other side so we had to go all the way around over a flooded footpath bridge and through another bit of flood to get to the car.”

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The weather warning ended at 10pm and forecasters said the rain would gradually ease through the night.

Met Office meteorologist Clare Nasir said they were “some lively conditions across the south as well as the east” and that a risk of rain and hail would persist on Wednesday and Thursday.

She said that on Friday there could be some heavy showers in the South, but elsewhere it will be mostly dry.