THE season of mellow fruitfulness gave way to stormy Monday as spectacular lightning flashes lit up the North-East sky.

The violent night-time storm, which featured brilliant bursts of sheet and fork lightning, played havoc with power supplies.

Thousands of homes were blacked out across the region and some were still waiting to be reconnected yesterday afternoon.

Lightning struck the roof of Hydro Polymers, at the Aycliffe Industrial Estate in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, causing a small fire.

A fire brigade spokeswoman said: "This was not a serious fire and there was no danger to any processes.''

Lightning also struck a tree on the village green at Aycliffe.

Firefighters think a lightning strike may have caused a small fire at the home of an elderly woman in Vulcan Way, Thornaby, Teesside, causing electrical wiring to short circuit.

In some parts, the storm was accompanied by heavy rain - fire crews in Newcastle had to pump out drains overwhelmed by the downpour - in others there was almost none.

Tony Kearney, of Consett, County Durham, watched the storm after his electricity supply went off.

He said: "It didn't rain at all here. It was lighting up the sky like it was daylight. It was fabulous.''

The storm capped a summer that will be remembered for its rain and freak conditions.

But a Met Office spokesman said it was not all that unusual.

"It does look to have been a fairly spectacular event.

"You can get storms in the middle of winter, but they are far more common during the summer when there is day time heating. I wouldn't say it was remarkable. The summer has been characterised by heavy localised downpours of rain that cause flooding.

"People remember those and forget about the good days. We haven't had an extended period of dry sunny weather, which people expect but it has been a fairly average summer overall.''

The weird weather this summer included a tornado over Northumberland earlier this month, a hail storm that hit Hull on the August Bank Holiday, and a weekend of torrential rain that caused heavy flooding in West Auckland, County Durham, early in June.

Monday's storms brought chaos to many homes in the region after power supplies were hit.

Residents in Marske, east Cleveland, were among those to suffer a blackout during the lightning on Monday night. Some homes were without electricity from 11pm on Monday night until yesterday morning.

Last night, a Northern Electric spokesman said there remained "small pockets" of customers without power, but engineers were working through the night to solve the problems.

It is estimated that about 50,000 customers in the region lost power for some time during the bad weather.

Electricity suppliers brought in extra staff to try to restore power to homes as quickly as possible