Monday/Tuesday Thunderstorm Heads Up

[Velvet Glove]

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=radar;sess=

At current speed it looks as though this present from France will reach the UK south cost around 1530 ~ 1630 BST. Can’t beat a nice interesting bit of “weather!” .. Will be an interesting night.

[RichC]

Not many sferics in that current MCS, it has dissipated some what, the main stuff should come later on.

[RichC]

Really fired up now south of me, heading NE.... on the point heading towards Central England. Further south, attached to this line is where i think this evenings MCS will develop and head towards Hampshire/Sussex/Kent

[TankBuster]

Blue skies where I am at the moment with just a few light clouds high up.
It has become quite hazy as the afternoon has gone on & cooled down a bit with a gentle breeze starting to pick up just now.


TankBuster

[CHILL51]

The sky is very very dark out to the south of me and its very warm still.
Feels more stormy today than earlier in the week.
A big storm is not far away.

[CHILL51]

Just started raining here but no lightning or thunder at the moment.

[dragon51]

Hello all we just had a down pour hear in Cirencester sky is very grey hear looking south it's a flat grey sky

[woody]

Fairly active cell just passing Milton Keynes heading roughly north at this time. Garden getting a good watering. Can't really see how extensive this is at the mo.

Steve

[Prometheusuk]

Totally missed here (Camberley).

Very disappointing

[RichC]

As i said, SE England from 1800 onwards. The vast majority of sferics are now over the channel making their way to SE England exactly to my time period. The MCS over the channel in North East France is on the verge of the most extreme i've seen for ages. Warnings out for Level 3 and "Extremely Severe" Storms. SE (Sussex/Kent) should see some very soon but at a much reduced rate to those across the channel as expected. Level 1/2 issued for SE for this evening.

Woody, your storm is isolated but may carry on as it moves NNE for those in that area.
Majority of the country (England) will see just heavy rainfall with the odd rumble.

[TankBuster]

I see there is some serious storm activity over the Harve are of France in the last 30 mins & it looks like it is probably going to track SE over Kent & into East Anglia in the next few hours.

TankBuster

[RichC]

Those in that area of France must be on the verge of desperation for this to stop. They've had multiple MCS (nothing unusual for this time of year) over the last week or two but several have caused major torrents in the cities and currently, this one is producing extremely strong SLW and massive hail. The damage the last three storms have caused is immense in Brittany and Normandie.

Delboy, the storm is still out over the Channel, the frontal edge is now making land fall but the Sferics are still way out over the sea.

[RichC]

There is always a possibility as more storms will develop (locally to some, no where near others) in central England and moves north.
Although weather warnings are in force, don't forget, the majority will not see thunderstorms, nothing like the outbreak beginning of this week (when this thread was started)...
It will be quite potent for some, but 20 miles down the road, nothing at all. The extreme SE of Kent will see most of this MCS which is heading their way though i would imagine, and just in time for the evening twilight/night.

[TankBuster]

Looks like I might get a good show looking out towards the Thames Estuary... The sky is looking rather black at the moment out that way!


Edit:... Just started raining here & its also rumbling away out over the Thames Estuary at the moment. I cant see any lightning tho as the rain out over the sea has really reduced the visibility.

Storm directly overhead now, mainly sheet lightning from what I can see.

TankBuster

[Mike]

rich c
what are "sferics"? and "mcs"...thanks.......

Don't disturb Rich just now, he's on top of the church roof, he's just disconnected the lightning conductor with one hand whilst holding a metal umbrella in the other.

[TankBuster]

It does appear that the bulk of the storm has just brushed along the Essex coastline.
The lightning activity is mainly out to sea heading from the English Channel into the North Sea. Theres plenty of flashing going on out there in the distance .

TankBuster

[RichC]

Sferics = Lightning
MCS = Mesoscale Convective System - This is basically a whole load of organised thunderstorms constantly building/decaying and lasting for a long time (i've witnessed MCS activity for 9hrs before. They grow rapidly especially out of WBPT plumes. You can basically look in the sky and see lovely peaceful AcCas (Alto-cumulus Castle-anus) clouds and all they need is a trigger point, which can be anything to peace together the parameters needed for a storm such as an upper trough over a frontal system (or trough on its own destabilising the warm plume). The little whispy clouds explode literally upwards and can form severe thunderstorms within 30mins if the right conditions allow. They then form slow moving elevated (much higher cloud base than the usual storm) thunderstorms which merge to provide one large complex of storms and can cover areas as large as Wales or England for that matter in a matter of an hour or two. They produce significant amounts of lightning and rainfall. For example, the MCS of which preceded tonights one and went over Benelux had upwards of 30,000+ lightning strikes in just 2 hours over the whole system.

Trouble is, they grow so damn rapidly that they cause a lot of debris cloud too, the anvils go up extremely high and spread out through upper winds and so the MCS on satellite can look absolutely massive (hundreds of miles across) yet the actual complex of thunderstorms (sferic/rain/hail wise) is half the size.

It does look like that tonights expected lightning show was a lot less than forecast. Those living across in Calais and Benelux though were under a different story and tomorrow will be a big clear up. Straight line winds of near hurricane force were recorded, larger than golf ball hail, tornadoes and of course fires and damage from lightning and major flash flooding.

[GreenBat]

A couple of shots of Monday/Tuesdays Thunderstorm taken from the campsite at Johns Field, as mentioned earlier in this thread these were taken through the car windscreen whilst sitting out the storm!





Cheers
Stuart.

[RichC]

Nicely caught Stu, especially through a windscreen which normally distorts. Great stuff

[GreenBat]

Cheers guys, it was an interesting night to say the least, most spectacular storm I've seen in years, I used the 30sec/f11 @ infinity settings as mentioned by yourself Rich, I had to keep using the wipers to clear the rain off the screen in between shots Although there was very little rain whilst the storm was happening, but it poured down as the storm moved away.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results as they were rather rushed and improvised shots.
Thanks again.