AND FLOODS IN HERTFORDSHIRE. 
241 
Barnet. It will be noticed that all these places hut one are in the 
south-east of the county; hut very little rain fell at some places in 
the immediate vicinity of Watford, the fall at the Colne Yalley 
Waterworks, Eushey, being only 0-29 in., and at the wettest 
station in the county, Moor Park, only 0-20 in. Ho rain fell at 
Pinner. The local character of the fall is due to its being the 
result of a thunderstorm, the south-eastern limit of which pretty 
nearly followed the outcrop of the Chalk from underneath the 
Reading Beds from a little south of Watford to Bishop’s Stortford. 
It must not, however, be inferred that the geological structure of 
the country had any influence on the storm, this probably being 
merely a coincidence. 
The following accounts of the storm as it affected Watford are 
taken from two of our local newspapers, the ‘Watford Observer’ 
of the 20th of July being first quoted from, and then the ‘ Herts 
Advertiser ’ of the same date, omitting from that a few statements 
which are given almost in the same words in the first-named paper. 
“The day was intensely hot, and early in the afternoon heavy 
clouds threatened thunder. Between two and three, lightning 
began to play and thunder was heard in the distance. About 
half-past three a few big, heavy drops of rain passed through the 
sultry, heavy atmosphere. Then hailstones began to rattle down, 
and in less time than it takes to record it Watford was visited by 
a terrific downpour of hail and rain, more severe than any other 
storm called to mind by the oldest inhabitants. The hailstones 
were of extraordinary size and shape. Some were as large as 
walnuts and appeared like solid pieces of broken ice- Others were 
flakes of ice an inch and a half across, which broke when touched 
like a thin biscuit. Others, again, were round as marbles, and as 
they struck the pavements bounced to the height of two or three 
feet. . . . On the roofs this extraordinary hail set up a rattling 
that was most startling, and on the windows the larger stones fell 
with sharp cracks that threatened broken glass. In the gardens 
plants and vegetables were beaten down and the leaves of the 
larger varieties were perforated, while the corn crops of the 
neighbouring farmers suffered much damage. But it was the rain 
which did the most harm to the town itself. Por weeks the ground 
had been parched, and vegetation had become brown and baked and 
scorched. The water could not struggle fast enough out of the 
spouts, and so overflowed from the roof-guttering and poured across 
windows and down walls and into cellars. It roared down the street 
gutters like a river. . . . The storm-water drains were quite 
inadequate to the demand made upon them, and scores of cellars of 
houses which stand in declivities were flooded with from one foot 
to five feet of water. The rapidity with which the water came 
into these houses was remarkable. In one instance the furniture 
in a kitchen in Queen’s Road was floating in four feet of water in 
a little over ten minutes from the time when the storm began. 
The station square took in the floods Horn the roads which run 
into it like a huge drain, and the subway became a water-way two 
