Driving Rain and Hale

2.18 p.m. The sky went very dark. It's almost like early evening, and certainly not early afternoon. The clouds have been building up over Milton Keynes for the past hour or so. Very black and forbidding, to say the least. It could only lead to one thing, and a few minutes ago there was a very powerful rainstorm. It lasted for about thirty seconds. Looked to me as if it was hale, as I stood near the sink washing up. I think if you'd been out in it you'd have found it quite difficult standing up straight. Stinging hale as it looked like there was a certain amount of ice particles mixed in with the rain. Water rushing down the road outside, almost like a river, a torrent. It was sunny and quite pleasant and almost spring-like earlier this morning, but the temperature dropped a few degrees as the clouds built up. It's still raining as I write this, but the actual hale storm has abated. Still dark though.