Wednesday 28th January 2015 - Hail, Haze & Delays! Severe hail showers and high winds cause disruption

United Airlines Boeing 757-224 N12125 operated their daily 9am service to Newark, New York

Later on in the morning the wind picked up rapidly and some very heavy hail showers passed over the airport which caused arrivals to circle and several aircraft to queue on the taxiway, such as Helvetic Fokker 100, Monarch Airbus A321 and Air Explore Boeing 737 (in photo) at the back of the queue and Ryanair Boeing 737 and SAS CRJ-900 at the front of the queue (not in photo)...

...First to depart after the runway reopened was Thomson Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner G-TUID which queued on taxiway Sierra outbound for Montego Bay, Jamaica, using full length of the runway and attempting to clear any excess water for the remaining departures! This aircraft includes "Angel of the Sky" titles

...Next to depart was Monarch Airbus A321-231 G-ZBAJ departing for Larnaca

...And finally Air Explore Boeing 787-8Q8 OM-FEX operating a service to Hannover. By now all operations at the airport were back to normal

Flybe Embraer 175 G-FBJA departed to Lyon off Runway 33 after more rain showers

Eastern Airways Embraer 145 G-CGWV operated their delayed morning flight to Newcastle. This aircraft is currently in plain white livery

Towards the end of the morning taxiway Sierra was closed due to maintenance works meaning that taxiway Echo was used for all departures until further notice...

Aer Lingus Airbus A320-214 EI-DEP departed for Dublin, another delayed service this morning

Thomson Boeing 737-8K5 G-TAWR operated the TOM676 service to Enfidha, Tunisia

Thomas Cook Airbus A321-211 G-TCDG was a midday departure operating their delayed flight to Fuerteventura

Aer Lingus ATR 72-600 EI-FAW operated their lunchtime service to Dublin

easyJet Airbus A319-111 G-EZGH was a departure outbound for Geneva. The sun did come out eventually!

Lufthansa Airbus A319-114 D-AILN operated their afternoon flight to Frankfurt

Air France Airbus A319-111 F-GRHZ operated their afternoon service to Paris CDG, with taxiway Sierra back open going full length!