Hi

Thanks for the reply - cleared a few things up in my mind.

I thought it was quite amusing when the meteorologist said that! lol

Robin

On Wed, 11 May 2005 22:23:53 +0100, Jeremy Handscomb wrote:

Hi,

It's the metal case of the car that makes it safe and not the tyres as the
casing directs the electricity around you and to the ground, so it is fairly
safe, but lightning is an oddity and is quite capable of exploding a car I
suppose (igniting fuel maybe?)

The cold front moving into hot air could indeed spark severe storms (as
happened oop north on August 10th 2003) but the synoptic setup would have to
be exactly 'right'. Remember that just a few hundred miles to the south they
were experiencing 38.5degC heat! The gales would have been caused by severe
thunderstorm related gusts and not from the typical Atlantic low pressure
storms (as the footage was undoubtebly from).

My favourite bit was when the meteorologist said: "I saw the Atlantic front
coming and I thought that it would be bad because when low pressure and high
pressure collide, it goes bang!'

Hahaha.

Hope I've got things right, someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

Jeremy

"Robin Wilson" wrote in message
news
Hi all,

After watching the BBC Heatwave programme (which I know is fictional) I
was wondering how likely a dramatic change (from heatwave to extremely
severe thunderstorms) like the one portrayed actually is. They said it was
to do with the cold air from the Atlantic Front colliding with the warm
air from the heatwave - but would that really cause that dramatic a change
in such a short time? This is probably a rather silly question, but I was
just wondering.

Thanks

Robin

P.S. Just another thing - they showed pictures of cars and lorries hit by
lightening - and someone died in the catering van at the music
festival...but I have always been told that the safest place to be in a
thunderstorm is in a car - because the wheels insulate you. Is that not
correct?