UK thunderstorms turn London into ‘oceans’

Videos have shown have the intense thunderstorms that hit the UK on Thursday turned parts of the city and surrounding towns into mini ‘oceans’.

Loud thunder cracks and forked lightning were reported across the South East as torrential downpours caused flash flooding including in Croydon.

The horrid weather even left one Londoner tweeting about how their home had been plagued with the stench of sewage. The grossed-out tweeter wrote: “Have the windows open. As the storm broke, the rain fell & suddenly the flat was filled with the smell of sewage. Arh London sewers. Didn’t even rain that much. Stinky.”

Videos have been shared on TikTok showing intense flash floods in London and commuter towns such as Guildford in Surrey and Winchester in Hampshire. One video – taken in London but not specified where – shows a shocked mum saying: “London is like Lagos [Nigeria’s largest city].”

The flooding was so intense that her car could no longer drive forward and she instead had to reverse to avoid the current of flowing water. A second video was filmed in Surrey’s Guildford and is captioned ‘not the UK looking like an ocean in summer’.

It would be hard to disagree with too, as what looks like knee-height water had gathered outside a Lidl with the entire road seeming to have become a watercourse.