A large thunderstorm is heading into the very far South East of England right now, with much of the storm still over the channel as of 10:40pm. However, the storm has reached the coast of East Sussex with places like Brighton and Eastbourne seeing severe lightning. Over the next few hours the big storm will continue to trundle inland with much of the South East, including: Kent, Greater London, East Sussex, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk at risk in the next few hours.
Some places could see over 25mm of rainfall in the next few hours, however it’s not out of possibility that some places could see 50mm, leading to a real risk of surface water flooding.
Image: Thunderstorm Alert for tonight
The thunderstorm will continue to advance into the far south east of England tonight. Large hail, gusty winds and surface water flooding are all a real possibility.
LIVE UPDATES 🔴 Further updates will be posted here by the team until 2AM tonight.
> 23:00pm – some power cuts have been reported in Eastbourne.
> 22:30pm – frequent thunder and lightning tease Brighton and Eastbourne.
> 22:25pm – reports from Brighton.
Absolutely mammoth electrical storm incoming over #Brighton pic.twitter.com/tcLcFtKZOU
— James (@jamesdevonport) June 18, 2019
> 22:23pm – “Essex Weather” on twitter says Kent is going to be in for it in the next hour, and we agree!
Mesoscale convective system coming ashore near Brighton, nearly 250 lightning strikes a minute. Those in Kent are in for quite a storm over the next hour! pic.twitter.com/mvZrdd1MTC
— Essex Weather (@EssexWeather) June 18, 2019
> 19:30pm – an active thunderstorm has been spotted rapidly developing over northern France, and heading towards the south east of the country.