Day as black as night

What an unusual week it has been for weather in these parts. In the last week an area of high pressure, which meteorologists are calling 'Otto', has caused it to be oppressively hot and humid.

Things came to a head yesterday morning in bizarre fashion: the sky turned black for about half an hour before a storm. Simon took some photos of what it was like outside his office at 10.30 am, one of which you can see here. All the birds stopped singing and someone had to switch on the external lights. Simon rang me because he'd never seen anything as strange before and wanted to check if I was experiencing the same phenomenon. At our flat, things didn't get quite so dark, but it was still eerily dusky.

This momentary blackness was preceded by a dust storm which left many cars covered in a layer of dark yellow Saharan sand.

Apparently there has been other strange weather in Germany this week. There was a storm in northern Hesse on Wednesday which brought so much hail it had to be cleared by snowploughs. Areas in the south west have suffered mudslides due to heavy rain. In Krefeld, tennis ball sized hail stones smashed car windscreens and windows.

It is horribly hot again here today. I am hoping for some cooling rain - but I also don't want my wishes to bring showers of monsoon proportions. After the weather we have been having, I wouldn't rule out a monsoon!