The Hoylake weather has changed a bit this week with cooler temperatures and no wind following on from a pretty wet start. I was on the beach today and other than it being cold it was a lovely day; bright and clear, you can see some snow on the tops of the hills in north Wales, and not a breath of wind …those turbines just stood there in the Irish Sea doing nothing (admittedly they’re usually spinning).
The stillness is the opposite of what Tom Singleton captured in the above photo a few weeks ago. Tom writes:
[I took the photo above] on the evening of Friday 26 August 2011, approx 7.35 pm at Bennetts Lane slipway. A thunderstorm was drifting south eastern Wirral. We were on the western edge of the storm which generated a series of waterspouts/tornadoes. I recall counting at least 5 over a 20 minute period. The attached shows 3 funnels if you look carefully. The one to the left, the more pronounced, tubular funnel can be seen “touching down” on the beach, technically meaning this was a tornado. The one to the right, a fainter but longer funnel is touching down on the water’s edge – hence a waterspout. I have seen two other photos and one video of the same event. A photo was from a member of the lifeboat crew who was working at the lifeboat station at the time. The video was from a fellow weather enthusiast who was cycling on the prom between Hoyle Rd and Sandhey slipway at the time. I can probably track both of these down if there was interest.
A second photo (below) is a little more serene, again from Bennett’s Lane slipway, at 8.25pm on Monday 13 August this year. All looks very tranquil and calm, but this was the “calm before the storm”, as a thunderstorm moved in from the south dropping approx 1 inch of rain in a twenty minute period and led to the usual flooding at the bottom of Elm Grove after such a downpour.
Were any Hoylake or Meols locals flooded at all this week? Have you encountered any strange weather this year? Have your say in the comments below.
Isn’t that Dovepoint Slip?