England football fans flocking to pubs to watch the crunch World Cup quarter-final match against Norway could be kicked out of their local boozers, with thunderstorms threatening to inflict chaos. Pubs across the country will be welcoming Three Lions fans later today, but many will also have to continue to follow strict closing time rules in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The crucial match comes after Miami was hit by a tropical thunderstorm late on Friday, with local hotels suffering power outages. Footage from the scene in Florida shows a tree branch falling onto a car while the area is battered by heavy rain and lightning strikes in the sky.
The clash against Erling Haaland‘s Norway is due to kick off at 10pm UK time, but a US meteorologist has warned that more lightning could derail that – even after the thunderstorms have passed.
He told Sun Sport: “Right now we’ve got in Florida a sea breeze type of setup where you get these afternoon showers and thunderstorms that come off the Atlantic.
“And for Miami itself, they get thunderstorms during this time of the year that typically happen in the afternoon.
“The sea breeze comes in, generates showers and thunderstorms, those thunderstorms continue to move west, and occasionally they dump some heavy rain and possibly some gusty winds.
“It’ll come in during the morning, and then during the midday to early afternoon there will be a couple of thunderstorms in the Miami area. Those thunderstorms can produce a lot of lightning in Florida and brief heavy downpours.
“Then by the later part of the afternoon, those thunderstorms will push west closer and farther into the peninsula.
“It’s that time frame from midday through the early part of the afternoon where there will likely be some thunderstorms and lightning nearby for the match.”
The Home Office previously granted pubs blanket permission to stay open until 1am normally, or 2am for late kick-offs between 9pm and 10pm.