Lightning Thunder Storm, London, UK - 26/05/2018 

Compulsive Viewing. I just had to watch this again. The storm that night was possibly the best electrical show I have ever seen , the colours in the sky were spellbinding. Yet some folk slept through the entire 'event ' . I watched from my bedroom window and was completely awestruck. Nothing beats nature for the greatest shows on Earth. Many thanks for the memories . Marvellous video.

Amazing footage thanks for sharing.My heart goes out to the homeless people and any animals who don’t have proper sheltering.When these things happen.Lovely speaking voice.Felt Sorry for all those people stranded at airports.

I seen a lot of storms in my life but I have never seen so much lightning. Great video.

solihull here, still raining and hailing after the thunderstorm last night. it went on for hours n the lightning bolts were massive!!! i love lying in bed watching/listening to it...

Remember watching this storm from my window. It went on for what seemed like ages. Never had I seen anything like it. Glad someone recorded it so we can show or review it.

Wow, spectacular- well done capturing it

Woke me up near birmingham at 2:20AM and I couldn't get back to sleep until 5:20AM when it calmed down, but another storm came again at 7AM and I woke up again. I watched it in awe for a couple hours out my window, I could sit all night watching it, and the sound makes it extra incredible, really makes you feel small.

I love how this guy is like so calm and not like “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THAT!” or “HOLY SH*T!! DUDE TAKE A FOOTAGE!!”

Hello from Brisbane Australia. Severe thunderstorms are quite common here in our summer and in comparison, this one is quite tame. I would imagine though that for you Londoners, it was quite exciting! See what the rest of your summer brings.

Excellent footage,thank you, stay safe.

You should read audiobooks, your voice Is so lovely and soothing! X

I live in norwich. we had.......NOTHING I'm sooo jealous, i love thunder and lightning and this was amazing thankyou for sharing this.

I live in Eastbourne and we had the same amazing storm the same night, it moved into kent then london i believe. It was a supercell that created alot on frequent lightening and was very fast moving! Great video i also filmed mine! 😊

Great video mate,well done. Yes,it was an amazing light show,i managed to pause the video on several occasions when there was a big flash,looks just like daytime. I noticed that too on Saturday night,while the lightening was spectacular,the thunder wasn't all that loud.

I wouldn't have liked to have been on that plane! I did my PhD in Atmospheric Science and this is fascinating to me. Notice a lot of the lightning is cloud-cloud strikes rather than cloud-ground strikes. This is actually the most common thing. Lighting will often jump from one cloud to another in a bid to find the lowest potential state, ultimately trying to find 'ground'. Another interesting fact is that lightning actually goes up, not down. A 'ladder' is formed from the cloud to ground which is basically a path of ionised air that facilitates the passage of electrons to the cloud. Also, the reason hail is associated with thunderstorms is partly due to the fact that hot humid weather and unstable air can cause massive updrafts of air, which is the beginnings of storm formation, these fast updrafts cause the humid air to rapidly cool condense and then freeze into ice crystals. Because the uplift of humid air is so rapid the cooling causes huge ice crystals (graupel) to form in the cold anvil tops of storms. Once too heavy they start to fall, as hail. On the way down they bump into other smaller ice crystals that are still being uplifted in the storm updraft. This bumping and rubbing of ice particles causes, in effect, a massive frictional charge transfer from the falling hail and the rising ice crystals. A massive charge builds up between the upper and lower regions of the cloud. It is in effect as happens when you rub your socks on the carpet and get a static charge transfer.

Awesome..same here in Devon. Its because it was quite high up and a good distance away. Thanks for posting

Thanks for the share fella . Mandymoo. Manchester.

That is a good video this was the day my mum died and I said to her after she passed away to light up the sky for me to let me no she got to where she was going thank for putting this video up it means a lot to me

Funnily enough I hate thunder/lightning but that was awesome

That was a great storm I was looking out the window and I filmed some to. Thank you Richard good video.

Great video of a stunning light show! It was amazing! Thanks so much for sharing 😃

I love watching thunder storms ,but we don’t get enough of them shame ...awesome video of it ⚡️

I did i video of this storm too, wasnt it awesome, in all my years in London ive never seen anything like it...

Always excites me when mother earth does her thing 😍 Amazing!! 😀

Whoa! That plane was lucky not to get struck. So close. You got pink lightning we got blue. Nice shot!

Mesmerising! I remember as a kid in the 60s my mum called this kind of lightning 'Wildfire'.

I remember the storm we had in Walsall on the 27th of May. Our back garden flooded and we nearly had water come into the house. I've never seen rain like it before in my life.

I saw similar in Devon, near Dartmoor last year. The frequency of lighting was phenomenal. I lived in Singapore as a child and never experienced lighting in the monsoon. Great vid.

The reason thunder is very faint compared to the severity of the lightning is because these storms are formed in medium to to high altitudes, the cloud base being 5 miles above the ground. This area of low pressure has destabilized the medium altitude of the atmosphere, this type of storm has the potential to give a good show of lightning. They usually start to form from a cloud formation called altocumulus castellanus. These clouds can form in bands and eventually form a stratform layer that looks like asperatus and then build up to high altitude like cumulonimbus, the bang you get thunderstorms like this.

Perfectly captured! Thx

Your video is amazing, your voice is very soothing too. I'm really scared of thunder so this video helps. Next time there is a storm I will try not to be scared, thank you.

Nice to see a different perspective. I was night fishing in a tent near Heathrow and it was intense. Pretty much constant thunder with no break. Got some cool slow-motion shots of the lightning that I'll try and share when I work out how to

That's why I enjoy ur videos please keep it up

I also filmed it but on my smartphone and it all came out terrible and is unwatchable so im greatfull for this great Quality Vidio Thanks!!

I love thunderstorms, I have never wished for rain as much as I do right now, fingers x !

Its not odd, what you seeing at the start is a distant thunderstorm. Lighting without thunder is visible upto 50miles away

We had no rain at all in Nottingham. But we had lots of lightning in the early hours of Sunday morning. Really quite eery. What a show indeed! Well caught!

Sounds like a possible Audi R8 just listen to the way it was flipping through them gears sweet ...... grate commentary by the very professional indeed 😏

Excellent footage - with me being in North East England, we have had no storms. This storm was elevated hence a clear view of the lightning but the thunder not so loud due to the further distance from the lightning itself (due to the storm being higher up in the sky). Fantastic footage, thanks for sharing this.

Still watching this on may 22nd 2023 still find it amazing. ✌✌👌🏻👌🏻🙏🙏🤗🤗

I don't even know how y'all guys are so chill about this! I mean yeah, it's amazing, breath taking and all but this scared me to death and I watched this online. I don't want to know how it would be in real life.

We up in the Cambridge area missed most of the storms. I was diligently watching lightningmaps.org hoping they’d track far enough north for some photography opportunities. Sadly not. Thanks for sharing what we up here missed!

This is a beautiful electric storm and I realise that without thunder it’s half as exhilarating!....x I got some lovely pics of lightening from this storm, not many though and had to delete a couple of thousand as I held my finger down too long on the shutter! 😂 thanks for the grt vid x

I used to see this all the time when I was north dakota, especially in the summer months...heat lightning, it still fascinates me

We had one in Dublin Ireland that same night it was absolutely amazing for 6 hours straight , my eyes hurt after a while though haha

That was so bad Richard thanks for this video

I was trying to watch tv last night and now my Skybox doesn't work

Wow great footage. Its was constant lighting for a while over Croydon area. The sky was a constant flicker.

We had the same storm in Birmingham today.... Beautiful lighting, thunder and heavy rain 😍😘

Same in Birmingham too. Been going on for over 12 hours. Right now it's gotten bad, lots of rain and it sounds like the city is being bombed. Crazy stuff.

If my memory is correct, 60 years from the great London storm of 1958 (I think it was in July), which was so much more than just a light show. That time the storm got into the London basin and went round and round for several hours. A neighbour's house six doors up in Thornton Heath ended up with a hole in the roof. I can still vividly recall the thunder clouds rolling up like a time lapse. Eleven years old then...head under the blanket stuff.

Nice and the sound of the rain too

Fabulously beautiful footage Mr Hammond :))) Love your voice!!! ... Meditation tape on here perhaps?!?

i live in NW london and the thunder/lightning was amazing. Theres still rain and thunder going on as i am writing this comment

We got walloped by this in Hertfordshire, don't think it crossed over my house directly but it was very close. Wish I could've recorded the storm but our neighbours had been hitting the booze (again) and were outside making a drunken spectacle of themselves...shame, because there was one incredible CG lightning strike which looked an awful lot like a staccato lightning strike. How I wish I'd captured it... Still, great video here. Love this footage.

Bro, your voice is so calming

this video will go viral for london anddd just to say this video is amazing i guess Thor is busy battling the next infinity war in london 🙄👍

That hit the plane incredible video

Over St Leonards, Bohemia road area, the lightning was constant and bright, not much thunder. The last big electrical storm I remember was in 1987, after one hot sticky day in Hastings. There is one awesome dry lightning sequence in Tombstone.

Your voice is so soothing during this video you should do more like this

I looked why there appeared to be no thunder as you can't have lightning without thunder, it the reason is the storm is to far away 20+ km or atmospheric conditions deflect the sound up and away from the ground.

Wow deffs amazing it should give me lightning speed electricity and broadband now 😂😂

Yeah I was there, it was fukkin madddddddd, no sound, no rain, just lightning from where I was... crazy!

I was at work when this happened and our building got hit directly above me, huge flash and the loudest bang ever, it fried the fire alarm system. Still it was awesome.

We had a crazy night too, amazing to watch ... and today the air seemed to be filled with electricity. Plenty of rumbling thunder... loved this video Richard. Thumbs up. Cheers Adam

It was right above my house but i wasnt in London. Also did anyone else see the pre-storm phase, where the sky would flash immensely, but there was no thunder or lightning visible. P.S My friend read the news and it appears around 15000 lightning strikes hit the UK in just four hours.

Watching from Australia... enjoying your coverage of the storm last night, & may I say what a lovely voice you have :)

In Birmingham, lots of thunder happened before.

Hi Richard, great footage and commentary. I’m in Poplar, East London and we had lots of thunder just after 11pm but we must have been on the edge of it. Nothing else since lol 🙂

Plasma discharge, or electromagnetic discharge? Maybe not enough energy that high up to cause a visual Aurora like the northern lights but sound Aurora's? Like what was heard.

I was staying in Blackfriars as I was taking part in a couple of running events that weekend. I remember the weather was insane!!

I I could listen to you speak all day. I you have a lovely voi e

Me too I haven’t seen a great storm like this in ages.

The storm was amazing and mental.

This came right over my head here in Sevenoaks, Kent. It was epic to watch. Then yesterday I could see the storm in Buckinghamshire from here too

It was manic driving home in it! Hope everyone is safe! In Northamptonshire pretty much everyone was effected, loads of houses and housing estates (like mine) where flooded. New subscriber❤️

I stayed up at night to watch it all from Birmingham I saw 11 lightning bolts and many flashes with heavy rain and thunder

Why is it always cloudy over England on a clear night sky that lightning would look even more amazing 😉

I have anxiety over thunderstorms but lucky me there is non in Manchester yet!

Richard Hammond Thanks so much for uploading this! On Sunday in the Midlands we had continuous Thunder none stop for over 2 hours thats no breaks in the actual sound of the thunder! I kid you not and definitely not exaggerating I have never known anything like it ever before! It was almost as if some one had a gigantic speaker. House shook a few times aswell The door and windows rattled floor vibrated. Not sure if you or any one else got Sundays storm? It was totally awesome!

Used to live in West London myself and the storm of 2014 was unforgettable, my dog was petrified!

Nice lightining color Orange often be white or blue colors , but very cool flshing and in Lithuania something the same was 1 month before.

It was amazing in Warwickshire, i have never seen lightning like it before

This is a good video well done Helen

thank you!

Yeah, it looked amazing last night

With this storm last night there was such a loud shockwave from a lightning bolt the entire house shook And woke everyone up. I could say that was the worst storm I’ve ever seen in the uk

In live just south of London in Kent, There is a huge 10 in 1 hill between us and London which is to the NW of us. I was amazed at this storm.. lots of lightning but few little thunder which I don't remember seeing in years and I been around for lots of years now? The other odd thing is that normally we have to have many weeks of very dry hot summer weather before we get a big electrical storm? So this one after so little amount of hot days not weeks is odd. I tried to film the 1st storm which was about 10 PM here.. Because of that huge Hill and the fact the storm was moving from London to Kent in a SE movement the Hill being so high caused the storm to go around our town.. half of all storms do that if they come from either the West or North West? We had a short heavy rain happen for about 20 minutes then nothing. the storm went after a hour. I went to bed soon after.. I was told that at about 1 AM another storm went passed here from London! And Dartford had a heavy amount of marble sized hail and lots of lightning in the 2nd storm?

Almost like last years electrical storm. Almost same time. Last years only had little rain at least I can hear the rain this time. Nice video. Thx. Makes you wonder...The climate is changing. No doubt. Some of it natural. Some of ot geo engineering most likely. Weird w/out much thunder

Ireland was the same it was mad but fascinating at the same time

Ive Heard That Storms In The UK Are Preety Rare. Especially A Eletrical One! Here In Sydney This Month In September We Have Coped The Most Insane Eletrical/Close Lightning Strikes Ever In Pre Historic Years-15 Years, I Have Them On My Channel. A Few lightnings Hit About 10cm Away From Were I Was Standing And Recorded It. I Uploaded It On Social Media And Made It Through To The Australia BOM Radar For Recordings. It Was The Loudest/Scariest Moment Of My Life! Nice Video!

Before hurricane Charley in 87, the lightning was very intense, heavy rain. after the storm, the local paper had an awesome front page photo of an almighty bolt o lightning over Hastings pier

Thank you for this amazing video Richard . I'm a bit of a weather fanatic and love astrology too. Wow that got very intense and beautiful xx💟

theres nothing like a good storm when your layed in bed at night. we didnt get anything here in west yorkshire. not even a rain drop.hope your plants didnt get two much of a battering.

This type of storm seems to be a thing of the last ten years in our part of the world. We've had a few here in the Low Countries.

I was in Kansas Dave, Lightning Capital of the World. This is Gospel Truth: I saw Ball Lightning move at Right angles across the Sky. Thought it just Kansas Folklore but it IS REAL!! ... Mike.

Yeah we witnessed it too last night around midnight. We live in Chessington. Our bedroom lit up everytime it lightened. It was proper. But strangely we didn’t hear any thunder nor did it rain! Nice footage by the way.

its over our area now

The closest it got to me last night was mostly just outside Reading so I only heard a few rumbles, but I saw a fair bit of lightning in the distance. The last storm a few days ago seemed to swerve around my town as I prepared for the worst. I've been paranoid about lightning since the storms in late August 2016 because of a direct hit on my house that knocked out nearly a grand's worth of electronics; they were unplugged at the wall but I forgot about the coaxial cable coming in from outside. Heard a crack in my ear, was thrown out of my chair while sat in the dark and 21 months later I've still got tinnitus lol. PTSD confirmed 🙄 Actually wow, just got a strike in my town. I can see nothing but blue and a few tiny white clouds lol. I can't even feel better when it's bright out 😂

These storms passed to the North-East of us here in Bournemouth, i saw loads of flashes in the clouds but couldn't actually see the lightning as you could here, again there was very little thunder and only a brief burst of heavy rain, i have seen a few of these storms in the last few years where nearly all the lightning stays in the clouds.