Sussex has seen regular outbreaks of bizarre weather in the last 13 years.

Since the great Great Gale of 1987 we have experienced severe flooding, droughts, high winds, blizzards and even tornadoes.

The 108mph winds on October 16, 1987 created an estimated £500 million damage bill.

Ten people died as buildings collapsed and six million trees were felled. Many people were left homeless.

A week earlier mudslides had hit Portslade and Rottingdean, causing £1 million damage to 100 homes.

A few days after the hurricane, floods caused damaged roofs to give in.

We are unlikely to witness the same ferocity again, but nature has hardly been much kinder since.

Some experts put it down to man-made global warming, others to natural climate changes.

In 1991 torrential rain on the A259 coast road made the section near Roedean School impassable.

A year later traders on Brighton beach were left two feet underwater following flash floods.

And in 1994 it was Chichester's turn to make national headlines when the city was severely flooded.

In 1997 the wettest October day since the week after the hurricane left London Road, Brighton, awash.

Last year saw the wettest August day for 30 years and this summer Worthing was subsumed as more flooding hit the coast.

It has not all been wet during the past 13 unlucky years, though. Droughts and hosepipe bans have become unwelcome summer fixtures, particularly bad in 1995 and 1996.

In February 1991 the worst freeze in years took hold, blocking roads and snowing families in.

Five years later four inches of snow fell as Siberian winds blew across Sussex. Hastings was the worst-hit. The next winter's temperatures reached minus 7C.

As 1998 began, Selsey was hit by a tornado. Hundreds were evacuated as 100mph winds lifted roofs, demolished chimneys and destroyed garden walls.

Then in September the trail of Hurricane Danielle lashed the Sussex coast.

More than 50 homes were damaged later the same month when a freak wind swept through Pagham, near Bognor.

On Christmas Day last year, Pevensey, near Eastbourne, only avoided devastation during the highest tides in living memory when strong winds changed direction at the last minute.