Story by Rory Poulter

The earth-shaking Sunday storm saw the borough's skies criss-crossed with a spectacular lightning show.

At the same time, between the bursts of rain, local photographers captured foreboding images of an unusually deep red sky.

The Met Office had issued two yellow weather warnings for the London area and when the downpours arrived, they were strong enough to cause local road flooding.

It was estimated as much as 60mm (2.3in) of rain fell in just half an hour.

At the same time, strong winds brought down a number of trees in the borough. Council tree and clearance teams are out today to clear up the affected streets.

Such was the power of the storm that flights due to land at Heathrow were diverted at the last minute to Birmingham and Stansted airports.

Chris Sweet, from East Sheen, captured some remarkable images of lightning from his garden.

After the storm, came a calm accompanied by ominous and deep red skies.

Local photographer, Ruth Wadey, whose stunning images regularly appear on national TV weather reports, said the colours were truly remarkable.

"I don't ever remember seeing skies like this before. It was a feeling of impending doom! It seemed like a piece out of a film of the end of the world!" she said.

One of her pictures captured a rainbow against the background of an ominously deep red sky.

In brighter news, sunny spells are predicted this week once the storms pass and temperatures could be almost as high as in parts of France, where Bordeaux will be 22C (72F).

Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill said: "Through the next few days temperatures will be rising. By the middle of the week, we could be in the low 20s in some places, possibly 21 (70F)."