Bizarre ‘blister’ of water appears in the middle of a couple’s back garden after torrential rain

This is the bizarre moment a gardener pops a massive ‘lawn blister’ in his back garden, after it appeared during an afternoon of torrential rain.

Charles McKinney and Yvette McKinney, 46 and 54, were watching the rain on Wednesday when they noticed a strange lump appear in their garden.

The weird swelling took just half an hour to fully form at their home in Ackworth, West Yorkshire.

It came during severe rain in the area, which saw parts of the Yorkshire Dales became impassable after 2in (50mm) fell in just a few hours.   

Charles McKinney, 46, was watching the rain on Wednesday when he noticed a strange lump appear in his garden. Once the deluge had stopped, he grabbed a garden fork and tried to get rid of it

Unable to pop it by standing on the mound, IT consultant Mr McKinney grabbed a garden fork to open a hole and release the trapped water

The curious couple went out to investigate after the rain stopped and couldn’t resist poking the huge squishy swelling.

Unable to pop it by standing on the mound, IT consultant Mr McKinney grabbed a garden fork to open a hole and release the trapped water as his wife filmed the popping on her phone.

She said: ‘We’ve lived in our house for three years now but we’ve never seen anything like it happen before.

‘Charles and I were so confused as to what was happening, but it was actually our son Edward (13) who told us casually that it was a lawn blister.

‘We’d never heard of them, but we googled it and sure enough, our clever teenager was right.’

Mr McKinney makes several holes in his lawn and the water soon starts to pour out of the strange mound 

Lawn blisters appear when a pocket of water becomes trapped underneath the grass surface and often develop after a large influx of water hits the ground. 

Mrs McKinney continued: ‘Boys being boys, Charles couldn’t help himself and just had to pop it.

‘It was all very entertaining and bizarre so I decided to film it and see if anyone else had had something similar.

‘It’s never happened here before but I’ll be intrigued to see if it happens again.’ 

The rain earlier in Yorkshire this week saw more than 100 homes deluged, bridges destroyed, roads blocked and towns cut off in flash floods.  

The region is braced for more rainfall on Sunday as the Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain across much of the north of England.   

What is a lawn blister? How water trapped underneath turf can create bizarre bubble on ground

A lawn blister occurs when a pocket of trapped water appears below the grass surface, usually when a layer of plastic sheeting has been laid below turf. 

There can be several reasons why a lawn blister forms, but it is usually due to a large influx of water into the ground at speed.

This can be from heavy rainfall, when water quickly accumulates in the ground. Or it can be due to a burst pipe underneath the grass. 

Lawn blisters came to public attention in 2017 when James Callender found a growth at his home in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania

Getting rid of the blister isn’t too tricky, and can be accomplished in much the same way a human blister is burst. 

But turf experts have warned that making too many holes in the grass around a lawn blister can be damaging to the ground. 

Instead they advice that one point is used for drainage, and then that is the only part of lawn that needs repairing once the water clears. 

It is also advisable to clear away the excess water that pours out of the blister and onto the lawn.

Lawn blisters came to public attention in 2017 when James Callender found a growth at his home in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. 

A clip of him trying to burst the blister went viral, as he desperately tried to drain several of the lumps around his garden.