Flooding in Newcastle

The weather in Newcastle was fine for most of the Bridges Festival, with the exception of the occasional shower. Then very, very suddenly on Sunday afternoon – just after photographing the giant print made by Northern Print and the ‘Stupendous Steamroller’ (see previous post), and just before I was due to walk back uphill from the Quayside to the station and catch a train back to London – came this. Some of the heaviest rainfall I’ve ever seen, accompanied by thunder and interspersed with hail. Really quite impressive; though somewhat less enjoyable if you happened to be standing in it.
Newcastle’s Quayside, where the festival was taking place, is – as its name implies – by the river, with steep streets leading up into the town centre. The steep streets instantly turned into sheets of water rushing down to the Quayside, where drains overflowed and the road flooded, and I took shelter under a stall selling Fairtrade wooden animals (the wrong side of the road unfortunately, since I then had to cross it to get back to the station), beside an (understandably) terrified child and a Russian woman who commented on the imminent end of the world.




I should point out that this is not typical weather for Newcastle or the northeast coast in general, which receives much less rainfall than the Lake District or the western Highlands.
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.