Motorists had a lucky escape when lightning struck a tree on the main road leading into St George’s yesterday morning.

Johnny Simoes heard a loud noise, saw lightning and when he went out to check, the tree had “shattered” all over Mullet Bay Road.

“Thank God no one was injured,” said Mr Simoes, who lives on the street. “Nobody was on the road, that was the most important thing.”

According to the Bermuda Weather Service, a stationary front was located to Bermuda’s immediate northwest yesterday morning, bringing a risk of thunder to the area.

Ms Simoes said he was up at around 7.30am when he heard “a big noise” right in front of his window and saw lightning.

He added: “I never heard that sound before in my life. This tree was completely destroyed.”

“There were bits of tree all over the road,” he said, adding that they later moved them so that no one would get hurt.

In its 4.30pm forecast, the BWS said the front to the island’s north had fragmented, although a few showers lingered in the area.

The service also issued an advisory on “Potential Tropical Cyclone Ten”, which it said was not a threat to Bermuda at this time but would be closely monitored.

The advisory added that the system, located off the coast of Georgia yesterday evening, was already forecast to “at least be responsible for strong winds and surge by Wednesday into Thursday”.

At 6pm, the system was stationary and its closest point of approach to Bermuda within three days was forecast to be 443 nautical miles to the north-northwest at 8am on Wednesday.

However, the advisory added that it may move closer to Bermuda after this time period. According to the National Hurricane Centre, the system was likely to become a tropical storm yesterday evening or today and post-tropical tomorrow.

The forecast track suggested it would move slowly towards the South Carolina coast last night and today, before moving near the northeastern coast of South Carolina and along the North Carolina coast. A tropical storm watch was issued from South Santee River, South Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina.

It came as the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey caused “unprecedented, catastrophic and life-threatening” flooding in southeastern Texas with two deaths confirmed so far, according to international media reports.

The system, which hit Texas as a category four hurricane late on Friday before becoming a tropical storm on Saturday, stalled yesterday and another 15 to 25 inches of rainfall were expected.

Isolated storm totals were forecast as high as 50 inches through Friday and numerous flash flood emergencies and warnings were issued for a large portion of southeastern Texas.

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