W. S. Pike

Abstract: Dramatic lightning displays and various incidences of ‘giant’ hail (Fig. 1) provided an appropriate ‘last night’s storm’ backcloth to the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation’s (TORRO) conference on severe storms held in Oxford on 8 June 1996. Temperatures exceeded 31 “C in Kent, East Anglia, and London on 7 June 1996. A maximum of 33.1”C at St. James’s Park, Westminster, set a new daily extreme for this date; indeed only in 1947 and 1950 have comparable temperatures been recorded during the first week of June. Thunderstorms were forecast to affect much of southeast Britain in the evening as much cooler air approached from the west.