Truly astonishing quantities of water fell from the sky and dropped on Broughton yesterday.
The heavens opened at about 6.15pm, and a six-inch-deep pool soon formed behind the diversion barriers on York Place. A medium-sized ocean found its way into the tram-holes beyond, but another then cascaded along Broughton Street at high speed, resulting in the bizarre spectacle of pedestrians and motorists hydroplaning downhill towards London Street.
At the height of the deluge, one E. Claremont Street resident in a first-floor flat reported water bubbling up into the bath. Right across Broughton, old and clogged rhones exploded under the pressure. In some places, conditions made it impossible to hold a camera vertically even whilst indoors [http://yfrog.com/122lbz].
Meanwhile, back greens transformed into temporary ponds, to the disgust of cats and low-lying gastropoda alike.
One of the worst hit spots was, as usual, Bellevue at the junction with Annandale Street (see Ross Graham's images below). Locals here have pressed since at least the 1990s for improved gully clearance and bigger storm-drains, and/or some grassing of the asphalt slope in Drummond CHS playground, but to no avail. They will no doubt complain again, and receive similar woolly assurances about 1 in 200-year events.
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The worst of the deluge was over by 7.15pm. A sodden fog cloaked homecomers. Gutters gurgled long into the night.
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The record amount of precipitation recorded in one 24-hour period at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RGBE) weather station is 82.1mm on 26 July 1985. We await yesterday's figures with gloomy relish, and a pleasurable foreboding that this year's summer Olympics may be rained off.
The Met Office forecasts more squelch.
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Update (16:40, 5 July)
An RBGE spokeswoman has just confirmed that the total rainful between 9am yesterday and 9am this morning measured a mere, piddling 18.6mm. 'Nothing like a record, even though it may have felt like one.' In other words: stop making a fuss, you lot.