With the official end of summer on Sunday, a weather warning for thunderstorms and heavy rain is in effect over parts of southern England and Wales.
The yellow warning went into place at one in the morning on Sunday and will remain in effect until midnight, covering all of Wales, south-west England, the Midlands, and portions of south-east and northern England.
With more showers to come, Cornwall has been the worst impacted area so far on Saturday as a torrent of rain hit the south-west.
Met Office meteorologist Becky Mitchell said: “The area we have seen most of the thunderstorms so far has been Cornwall, and there’s been some large hail reported there as well.”
Ms Mitchell added that the southwestern county has also seen lightning.
She warned there was “probably quite a lot of water on the road”, after reports of about 30mm of rainfall in the area, which could lead to “tricky driving conditions”.
“The only other place I’ve seen some thunder strikes was quite early this morning, about 6am, and that was in the Surrey and Oxfordshire region,” the meteorologist said.
“We are currently experiencing intense showers in London and Wales as well,” she continued.
Although there haven’t been any thunderstorms along with these showers yet, there is still a good portion of the afternoon left when there may be more.
“Typically as the afternoon goes on, we’ll see higher temperatures and the heat can help trigger the thunderstorms to kick off, so I expect through mid-afternoon we’ll see some more widespread ones.”
More intense, thunderous showers are predicted for many areas of Wales and southern England, possibly with huge hail. 50 to 80 mm of rain could fall in certain impacted areas.
According to Ms. Mitchell, there is “potential for some localized flooding” and the weather is likely to stay “unsettled” for the next four days.
It comes as a tornado swept through Aldershot, Hampshire, causing damage to properties and felling trees. No one was hurt in the freak weather event which happened at 12pm on Friday.
The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (Torro) said that it had tracked the length of the movement of the tornado to be 2km long.
The organisation’s investigator posted on Twitter that they had given the tornado a preliminary T1 or T2 rating which would rate it as a light or mild tornado.
Local resident Louise Le Poidevin said: “I was coming back and it was really, really cloudy, and as we got home the thunder started and the rain started, it was really torrential rain.
Wales and the central south-west of England will be under a weather warning for rain starting on Sunday. On Monday, a second warning will go into place, covering areas further east and further north.
“Everything was raised off the ground, and the leaves were arranged in a large spiral that went round, frightening us as the trees in the back garden were bent over.
“The noise was so loud that I thought the doors and windows would burst through. Afterwards, a gazebo cam flew over to the fence of the neighbor next door.”
“Then as soon as it started, 30, 40, 50 seconds later, it had gone.”
“I thought it was a tornado because of the spiral; I have never seen anything like it and I am quite the weather watcher,” Ms. Le Poidevin, a groundskeeper, continued.
“Thankfully no-one was hurt, I do not know how because it was at 12 o’clock midday.”