Britain is set for three days of storms (Picture: SWNS)
Britain is set for three days of storms (Picture: SWNS)

An interactive map shows Brits where lightning is striking the country, with the heatwave being replaced by rolling thunderstorms.

The Met Office has put in place a Yellow storm warning for most of the country after temperatures topped 34°C yesterday.

The lightning map, which describes itself as a community project for ‘entertainment purposes only’, shows strikes in the last hour.

Using data from Blitzortung.org, it shows new lightning strikes in red, which disappear after a minute.

Circles shows strikes within the last 60 minutes, which start yellow and get darker the older they are, with dark brown equal to almost an hour.

Those circles then disappear after the 60 minute mark.

If you zoom in, you can also ‘see’ thunder claps – represented with growing white transparent circles, which also disappear after a while.

Live lightning strikes are shown on the map (Picture: SWNS)
Live lightning strikes are shown on the map (Picture: SWNS)

The storm warnings are due to last until Wednesday, though it expires earlier for more northern areas as the week progresses.

The Met Office has warned of thunder, lightning and power cuts as showers move in.

It comes after an official drought was declared in eight areas of England on Friday by the National Drought Group (NDG).

But meteorologist Dan Stroud said: ‘(The storms) will help a little but to be honest really, it’s almost the wrong sort of rain.

‘What we’re likely to see is some heavy, intense downpours.

‘With the ground baked so dry, it’s very difficult for the ground to actually absorb the water very quickly… so what tends to happen in these circumstances is the water runs off and we can potentially get some surface run-off issues, so some flash floods.’

Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.

MORE : Thunderstorms cause top LGBTQ destination to declare sewer emergency: ‘Only flush when absolutely necessary’