Glad someone else spotted it too.  I came on here expecting others to have reported it moving across the country but then having looked on the lightning map, I could see why nobody else had posted.  Getting excited about a storm isn't quite the same when you're alone.  It's much better to share!   

Apologies for an extremely late post regarding that memorable evening and night of July 18th/July 19th 2014, but I was in a prime spot right on the seafront at Hastings filming the arrival of that beast as it crossed The Channel shortly before 8pm on the Friday evening.

I have finally downloaded a few clips on YouTube but not sure how to post them here. To be honest I was a bit embarrassed by my vocal contributions, particularly when 2 guys with fishing rods pulled up right alongside and were apparently about to go beach casting just as the storm made landfall.

In all my years of watching storms in the UK I can honestly say this one was a 9/10 and something I will probably never witness the likes of again. I was both exhilerated and fearful at the same time. I knew I was safe, filming from inside my car, but I was fearful for the crowds who had stayed on the beach after what was a very hot day, seemingly oblivious to just how severe this storm was, and the imminent danger they were exposing themselves to. My efforts to warn them fell on deaf ears so my filming was not as concentrated as much as it might have been. Day turned to night within 5 minutes and the lightning was a sight to behold, many of the strikes being c-g.

That storm lasted approximately 45 minutes, but the one which followed a few hours later lasted from about 2am to 4am and the lightning display probably bettered the earlier storm. It was almost strobe like at times with strike rates in the region of 15-20 a minute right across my limited view of the skyline by then. ( I had left the seafront and returned to my friends home in Fairlight ).

It was a memorable event.