Hail storm steals sunseekers' thunder

Reporter: Gillian Potts
Date published: 08 June 2016


A PERFECT summer's evening took a chilling winter turn as hail stones the size of marbles pelted residents during a freak storm in High Crompton yesterday.

At around 6pm the skies darkened and released an icy blast across the Oldham/Rochdale border sending bewildered residents running for cover.

Some even attempted to protect their car windscreens from the force of the hailstones, which lasted for around 20 minutes and left everywhere covered in a thick white blanket.

One resident told us: "My husband was just going to water the hanging baskets when it just suddenly started. They were extremely large hail stones. As they hit the windows it sounded as if they were going to crack!

"They were bouncing two foot off the grass and after about five minutes everything was white and the flags were flooded.

"The whole event lasted about 20 minutes. I've never seen anything like it before."

Wendy Mayall, who owns the Streaks Ahead hair salon, in Chadderton, lives nearby on the Oldham/Rochdale border and said she couldn't believe it when she arrived home from work to the mess and aftermath of the storm.

She says piles of hail were in her garden an hour after they had fallen.

"The roads where steaming where the hail had melted from the heat of the ground - I couldn't work out what was going on - and there were bits of branches everywhere," said Wendy.

"It was lovely in Chadderton, I couldn't believe what I'd got home to. It was an odd sight seeing my sun tan oil which I'd dug out yesterday lying on the patio in a pile of white stuff!"

The storm caused localised flash flooding just over the Rochdale border off Broad Lane with police forcing drivers to turn around near the Spring Inn.

It was all in stark contrast to earlier in the day when high temperatures meant they were cooling off in Alexandra Park.