Thunderstorms broke out especially in the south and west on 10th and 11th July 1995. I remember the morning of the 11th with a thunderstorm and some good strikes. This cleared then we had a hot humid sunny interval during the late morning to mid afternoon, when another thunderstorm rumbled through during the late afternoon rush hour.

BBC forecasts of the time by Bill Giles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXDiNlmYXhY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrDnNKeX8gM

BBC Northwest news on the storms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUW-rEBZqmQ

I remember there being a rather nasty storm here on the evening of Tuesday 11th July 1995. It didn't last that long; IIRC it started around 8:30pm and had largely cleared by just after 9pm, but it was as severe a storm as I've ever seen in my area. Almost continuous lightning (may even have been forked lightning which is very rare up here) and several very loud cracks of thunder, plus torrential rain. Once the storm had cleared, it just rained for the remainder of the night.

We had a second storm three days later on the afternoon of Friday 14th July, and although it lasted rather longer (two hours or thereabouts) thankfully it was nowhere near as severe as the one three days earlier. Those two storms were our only instances of thundery weather during that whole summer.

Just looked at my weather records and it doesn't appear to be "all that" at this end with a thundery shower. Besides, it was completely overshadowed by the regular bouts of hot weather throughout that Summer.

I remember that time very well. There were some very violent storms here in north Lowestoft, equivalent to the storms in N England overnight on July 1/2 this year, and S England overnight on 17/18/19 July last year, but no hail. Here's the summary below.

July 10 was a warm, dry, sunny day here. Just occasional Ac cast clouds in the evening from the SSE, but something was brewing up over Benelux.

I woke up at around 4 am on July 11, hearing several rumbles of thunder, nothing significant, and in fact rapidly decayed into Cirrus spi and things turned quiet and misty, and there was a deep red sunrise.

Another lot of Ac cast clouds started arriving from the SSE, and suddenly in the distance to the SW, were frequent lightning strikes lasting about 10 minutes. The CG lightnings were amazingly tall, indicating very high cloud base (probably 3500-4000 m). Virga then developed but not reaching the surface, but the lightning soon stopped and the storm moved away. It was then mainly dry with sunny periods but unstable medium clouds.

By breakfast time, more Ac cast clouds arrived from the SSE giving a violent storm, lasting about 2 hours. There was continuous rumbles of thunder, and at the height of storm were lightnings every few seconds and just almighty bangs and crack, as well as, of course, heavy rain but no hail. Winds got up to 15-17 mph. The lightning several parts of the local theme park (Pleasurewood Hills); one struck 10 feet away from a maintenance staff there, another one struck the telegraph pole and blew up the office computers close by! The authorities decided to close the park for the day.

Later in the morning, the storm gradually declined, just giving steady rain and sporadic rumbles of thunder, before clearing away by noon. The rest of the day was dry with hazy sunshine, but still very warm and sultry (max temp 27 C). The following night was a quiet and misty with mostly clear sky, just occasional patches of Ac cast. It turned cooler and fresher during next few days with occasional showers, but still warm.

In total, we had 4 thunder days in July that summer, but 0 in June and August