242 
J. HOPKINSON—SOME RECENT STORMS 
feet in depth. The booking and parcel offices were washed out, 
and sundry packages were to he seen floating about in the muddy 
tide, through which the more adventurous porters waded up to 
their knees. . . . Along the Queen’s Road at its lowest part 
the house of Mr. Drennen was flooded. The water turned off: from 
the gutter through the gateway and rushed down some stone steps 
into the ground floor, and its force may he gathered from the fact 
that the door, which was fastened, was hurst open, the lock being 
broken. . . . Several other houses in the same locality were 
in a plight almost as had. . . . The services of the Tire 
Brigade were afterwards requisitioned to pump the water from 
the houses. . . . The storm did not extend to Bushey. The 
hail and rain fortunately did not last long, hut the thunder and 
lightning continued through the evening.” 
The St. Albans paper gives a somewhat similar account of the 
storm at Watford, differing a little in detail. 
“ The morning opened well, and everything was bright and fine 
until after dinner-time, when the sun was hidden every now and 
again behind a thick thunder-cloud. Vivid flashes of lightning 
were to be seen in the distance, and the distant rumbling of 
thunder was heard. The lightning became nearer and seemed to 
increase in its force, and thunderclaps became heavier. Shortly 
after three o’clock the pavements and slates were spotted with 
large drops of water, and before the tradesmen could get their 
goods inside there was a terrific downpour of rain, accompanied 
with hail-stones, and their goods suffered severely as a result. 
. Queen’s Road presented a remarkable sight, for at the 
lowest-lying portions there were about two or three feet of water. 
The storm-drains were not capable of coping with such a terrific 
rush of water, and as a consequence it flowed over the pavement 
into the houses on the lower side of the road. It was soon pouring 
like a torrent into the houses, the windows being smashed, . . . 
[A detailed account follows of damage done at a number of houses, 
and of the flooding of the Watford Junction station.] It is strange 
to relate, but there was practically no hail or rain on the other side 
of Bushey Arches.” 
The cause of this severe flooding was undoubtedly the great 
amount of rain which fell in a short period, nearly the whole of 
the day’s fall coming down in torrents in less than an hour. At 
the London Orphan Asylum, Watford, 1*78 in. fell in an hour and 
a quarter, and in less than that time 1*85 in. fell at 105, St. Albans 
Road. Another gauge in the town is said to have collected 1*88 in. 
in three-quarters of an hour, which is at the rate of over two and 
a half inches per hour in that period, an unprecedented record for 
any part of the county. An inch of rain in depth gives a weight 
of water of 64,636 tons per square mile (= nearly 101 tons per 
acre). Taking the mean fall over a square mile in that part of 
Watford where the downpour was heaviest at the moderate com¬ 
putation of an inch and a half in an hour, there fell in that time 
in this area nearly one hundred thousand tons of water (96,954), 
