August 10th/11th 1986 thunderstorms

[Sunny76]

Does anyone recall these overnight storms during August 1986?

I remember them moving in during a Sunday night, into Monday morning. I remember being woken up by them, and there were several storms that night.

This was during a very warm humid spell, as I have a vague memory of it being very dull but warm at the time.

It was a cool or cold month overall, but this weekend was very muggy in the London region.

[hillbilly]

No Thunderstorms here in the Pennines,a month of showers,breezy,dull and little in the way of warmth.Struggled to get the second cut sileage working on the farm,took us 2 weeks as we were constantly rained off and washed tonnes of mud down a field we had just ploughed over after heavy rain on the night of the 25th

[A Face like Thunder]

I can't say I remember this event although I would have been in S London / Surrey at the time. I remember (former) Prince Andrew, now presumably known as Mr Andrew Windsor, getting married on a nice day at the end of July 1986 and of course the Bank Holiday washout towards the end of August 1986 resulting from Hurricane Charley (fortunately I was sunning myself in Scotland at the time), but not the storms of 10/11th August 1986.  

[Summer8906]

I do remember possibly the same event, but from the Black Forest, Germany, where I was on holiday at the time. I think I have the date down as the evening of Monday 11th which would fit a west-east progression of the same system.

I spent the first 12 days or so of August 1986 in the Black Forest and the weather was generally good, much better than the UK from what I gather; rather reminiscent of the early-mid summer of 1994 in southern England. On August 1st it was hot and sunny, and the weather started breaking on the 3rd, a day of Ac Cast, daytime slight thundery showers, and then a big overnight storm 3rd/4th.

It then became cooler but over the following week temps were on an upward trend again, though I do remember cloud amounts being somewhat variable (with sunny days outnumbering cloudy ones, though).

Towards the end of the holiday, I think Monday 11th though not sure, we had another humid day of Ac Cast then around dark (later than the UK due to the timezone) a vicious storm started advancing from the west, accompanied by frequent pink lightning. This then moved overhead producing torrential rain and frequent lightning, perhaps more severe than the one a week earlier.

Finally, in a very unusual type of weather for summer, much of that part of Europe was blanketed by persistent all-day mist and fog as we left and started travelling back to the UK, perhaps around the 13th/14th. The day we left the Black Forest was foggy, we overnighted at a foggy Leiwen campsite above the Mosel not too far from Luxembourg, and the following day was foggy too. This fog cleared as we headed west, staying in Paris in the evening which was sunny and moderately warm, though weather deteriorated again as we headed home the following day. I'm guessing the fog-bound areas received extreme rainfall from the system which saturated the atmosphere and made the fog difficult to shift even from the strong summer sun?

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906