The tail end of the storm...

Over the last couple of days Britain has been struck by the worst September storm for thirty years, leaving many properties in the North flooded once again. Peterborough has been very fortunate and has missed the worst of the rain. Today, when I went for my morning dog walk, the river levels were high but there was no flooding at all. A classic storm has an area of heavy showers behind the main rain front, and this can give the most dramatic cloudscapes, well illustrated in this image. At times the sky looked very threatening, but I only got slightly wet, just after I took this picture.

I hadn't been down to Ferry Meadows for a long time and saw a number of changes. They've been busy making hay in some areas, while other fields are now being grazed by cattle. I saw two cygnets, the only ones I've seen anywhere in the Nene Valley this year, as most of the nests were flooded during the spring rains. I was also somewhat alarmed to see quite a large area of Himalayan balsam along one of the lake margins, a recent arrival in the park which seems to have benefitted from the wet summer. It'll be interesting to see whether it persists through a more normal dry East Anglian summer.