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What a difference a week makes..... Welcome to the Uk!!!

As promised here is a shot of the shelf cloud over Beverley earlier this evening. https://forum.netweather.tv/gallery/image/21318-img-2413/ This cloud connected two cells, one to the N and one to the S of me but was best defined towards the north.

Hi everyone. Here is my latest report on the 00z Model Runs from GFS, UKMO,GEM, NAVGEM and ECM for today Monday July 6th 2015 " Sorry unable to provide links this morning" The Latest Situation. A warm front is moving NE over the UK today followed by a complex cold front tonight. Tomorrow will see a showery and cooler WSW flow across the UK. The 2 Week Forecast Headline Changeable with some rain at times but drier in the South and East with some warm spells. The GFS Jet Stream Forecast shows the flow mostly blowing much to far South in the next few weeks. It's flow remains across the Uk this week veering NW as a trough translates East. then after a brief shift North it returns South across the UK next week in association with Low pressure close to Scotland. The GFS Operational Run shows the pattern unchanged from recent days again this morning with some warm and dry conditions across the South at times as extensions of the Azores High cross close to Southern England only to be followed by brief Atlantic incursions of cooler air with thundery rain or showers at the transition point. The North closest to Low pressure off the Atlantic maintains largely changeable conditions with rain at times and here it will remain relatively cooler than conditions elsewhere. The GFS Control Run is very similar in it's first week or so with the best of warmth and dry weather across the South while the North sees more changeable conditions on a Westerly breeze. Then later in Week 2 a pattern change is shown as High pressure builds through the Atlantic switching winds to a cool NW or even Northerly with a mix of sunshine and showers for all. The GFS Clusters for the 14 Day point are almost universal in suggesting that a NW flow will be affecting the UK in 14 days time with Low pressure in varying degrees of proximity to the UK but most members showing cooler air flooding the UK from the NW with occasional rain or showers. UKMO this morning looks quite good as we move towards and over next wekend as it builds a strong ridge NE from the Azores across Southern Britain restricting influence of Atlantic winds and fronts to the NW whereas the South becomes largely fine, warm and sunny next weekend. The Fax Charts endorse the raw data well today with a ccoler pahse of NW winds and showers midweek giving way to warmer conditions late in the week and into next weekend with High pressure lying close to the SE with a warm front travelling NE over the NW with a little rain and humidity rising everywhere. GEM today keeps the current pattern going over it's 10 day span with High pressure always close to the SE or South and winds blowing from a West or SW point across the North and NW with occasional rain. A lot of rather warm and humid weather looks likely on this run across the South with just a very occasional interruption of rain on troughs crossing from the West, all this after a brief cooler and showery blip in this coming midweek period. NAVGEM maintains the status quo of current weather pattern with Westerly winds and occasional troughs delivering showers and some rain at times with some fine and warmer interludes in the South especially later in the period. ECM today sits on the changeable fence with occasional troughs crossing East in the otherwise Westerly wind delivering occasional rain in the South and more frequently in the North. This run does take a more GFS Control Run stance of switching winds to a cooler NW or North flow late in the run as pressure builds North through the Atlantic. The ECM 10 Day Mean Chart from last evening shows slack Westerly winds and occasional rain across the UK with temperatures bordering above average especially in the South. The Verification Statistics of GFS, UKMO and ECM. This morning's verification statistics show ECM leading the way at 3 days with 96.0 pts followed by UKMO at 95.1 pts and GFS at 94.7 pts. At 5 days ECM is stll king at 85.2 pts followed by GFS at 82.1 and UKMO at 81.9 pts. Then at 8 Days ECM still leads at 48.8 pts over GFS's 46.2 pts. Finally at Day 10 ECM leads GFS at 30.3 pts to 26.9 pts from GFS. My Thoughts Once again today there seems little difference in the overall patterning of conditions over and around the British Isles over the coming weeks. The main thrust of the Jet Stream remains too far South to allow continental heat to move back over the UK in any meaningful fashion and while conditions will be far from bad in any one place any significant warmth and sunshine still looks rather brief and fleeting as Atlantic fronts move East to dislodge it quite quickly after it's arrival. As is usual in a Westerly flow South will always be best and there could be quite a lot of pleasant weather for much of the time but areas further North will have to pick and choose the best days as here Atlantic winds will bring more frequent bands of rain and showers at times. There is a something of a shift in some of the longer term output to build pressure across the Atlantic through the second week which would result in a shift of winds to a cooler NW or Northerly quarter for all. This is highlighted well in this morning's GFS Clusters, the GFS Control Run and the ECM operational today and while yet it is still too far out to call we need to keep an eye on this trend in future runs. In the meantime it's business as usual with the North/South divide remaining in place for some while yet and while it may not be high summer in the true sense of the word conditions could be far worse and I'm sure there will be some decent fine weather to be had for all regions in the coming two weeks but more especially in the South.

It's maybe not the usual weather watcher's show, but Ian will be on This Morning (on ITV) shortly to talk about lightning and lightning safety

So the week ahead Tomorrow - A fine and sunny start, cloud will build during the day as a warm front spreads north east, though it should stay dry. Temperatures 21-24C Tuesday - A dry start but showery rain will push eastwards during the day, clearing during the afternoon. The rain could be thundery in places with weak cape and instability present, this couple with the scattered aspect of the rainfall. Temperatures - Again 21-24C, feeling humid for a time. Wednesday - Sunshine and scattered showers, the most frequent and heaviest in the north. The south should remain dry. Temperatures 18-21C Thursday - A mainly fine day as a ridge builds across the UK, the chilly north to north west wind should ease in the east as the day goes on. Temperature 19-22C, warmest in the south. Friday - Another fine day, and much warmer too with sunny spells Temperatures 23-26C The weekend at the moment looks mixed with uncertainty regarding the persistence of the ridge building during the second half of this week. It could offer some more fine and very warm weather, but conversely it could turn more unsettled again. Hopefully we will get a clearer picture over the coming days.

Storm & Convective Forecast Issued 2015-07-06 22:34:19 Valid: 07/07/2015 00z to 08/07/2015 00z CONVECTIVE/STORM OUTLOOK - TUESDAY 7TH JUNE Synopsis Upper low/trough over the Atlantic will shift east across the UK over the next 12-24hrs. Surface low just west of Ireland will move NE across Scotland Tues afternoon, to be over North Sea/SW Norway by Tues midnight. A cold front moves slowly east across the UK Monday night/Tuesday morning, clearing SE England/E Anglia by midday. An unstable rPm SWly flow will follow the cold front across central, northern and western areas. ... S ENGLAND, MIDLANDS, LINCS AND E ANGLIA TUES MORNING ... Warm/moist air advection tongue ahead of cold front moving across England and Wales Tuesday morning will create a narrow zone of instability in the warm sector just ahead of the front, with a few 100 j/kg CAPE indicated by GFS. Line convection may form along the front producing heavy pulses of convective rain with some embedded thunderstorms moving NE along the front. Storms may organise into multicell or line segments - given 40-50 knts of DLS - with a risk predominantly of strong wind gusts and torrential rain leading to localised flooding. ... IRELAND, SCOTLAND, N ENGLAND, WALES and MIDLANDS ... Post cold front airmass will be characterised by steepening lapse rates, as cold air advection takes place aloft with arrival of upper trough from the west atop of diurnally heated moist boundary layer. Up to 300-400 j/kg CAPE are indicated in the afternoon across central and northern Britain, as the steeper lapse rates arrive from the west, this combined with forced ascent with arriving upper trough and surface heating will support the development of scattered heavy showers and thunderstorms across the above areas. Vertical shear will become weaker into the afternoon here during peak heating, so storms may struggle to organise to bring any severe threat, though any storms will be capable of hail, gusty winds and heavy rain leading to localised flooding.

Evening Its all just a bit 'meh' really isnt it looking forward. Distinctly average. One post on the 12zs so far by 8pm says it all really! You dont even have to look at the models normally to get a feel for things, the post count on this thread is the best measure of them all. Just a handfull of posts for the last few days. GFS and ECM both showing changable condtions with the north going below average at times. Having a look at South Yorkshire below - Temperatures arent anything special, high teens for the majority of the days right out to the last third of July so allowing for the undercooking we get then id say 20c at best. Some pretty chilly days showing infact with a mean of 15c and the run being optimistic at the end: Mean pressure quite low aswell for the whole run so always the chance of rain or showers and the run is way above the mean towards the end. Its not looking dry thats for sure with quite a busy precip chart aswell: So all in all not too great for July on todays outlook so we will need to keep an eye out for improvements. The UKMO is better but its been lost as of late and the verification stats posted earlier dont fill me with confidence that it knows what its doing!

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3034

Look at winter 1866-6728th Dec 1866: 8.7C 4th Jan 1867: -9.3C 7th Jan 1867: 9.8C A drop of 18.0C and a rise of 19.1C all within a fortnight.

I may be mistaken, or clutching at straws, but I am drawn to the early part of tomorrow as a front moving from the NW to the SE looks to produce a very defined but narrow band of intense precipitation. I am interested in the possibility of storms running along it. The following charts are taken from lightning wizard and so are based on GFS and are for 06z tomorrow. Parcel Layer Depth quite impressive along a narrow line. Looks to me like a NW to SE moving line with SW to NE moving storms (if there are any). As small amount of MUCAPE (most unstable) and ICAPE (integrated) available but combined with 30-40 knots of deep layer shear. Thompson index and precipitation on chart 1 - hail parameter on chart 2 showing hail of up to 2-3cm in diameter Plenty of moisture along the same narrow strip. Does anyone else have a view on this?

UKMO shows high pressure over the UK at the end of the week bringing us a settled day on Friday Saturday sees the low slipping away with low pressure trying to push in over Scotland and Northern Ireland the risk of some showers here, but the further south and SE you go the drier, brighter and warmer its likely to be By Sunday the high is pushing back in from the south west, so remaining mainly dry in the south with any rain / showers confined to the far north and west and largely warm and sunny in the south

I had a little free time yesterday and got an answer to the other question. The change in February to March 1947 was relatively benign compared to some, the largest <31 day increase occurred between February 24th, -6.7C, and March 22nd, 9.0C, giving a change of 15.7C. The biggest variance in the daily average CET over a 31 days period occurred during the winter of 1837/8, with a high CET of 8.9C on December 1837, and a low of -11.9C on January 20th, giving a change of 20.8C over 27 days. More recently, 1981 had a high of 12.0C on November 23rd followed 19 days later by a low of -8.5C on December 12th, a difference of 20.5C. The vast majority of these record high changes occur during the autumn and winter months. You have to drop back to a 17.5C change to find a high value in spring. This comes from 1808, when April 19th recorded an average CET of 2.5C, followed 27 days later by a 20.0C value on May 16th, a 17.5C increase (3 days later, the CET was back at 9.3C!). The find the largest variance within the JJA summer period, we have to drop back to 14.2C, which occurred between June 17th, 9.8C, and July 13th, 24.0C, in 1923. That means that this years increase of 15.2C between June 1st and July 1st is, provisionally, the largest on record to have occurred entirely within summer!

heres one from the other night in bournemouth. best storm ive witnessed in my life!!!

As I'm sure you're aware, lightning bolts can display a wide variety of colours ranging from lilac, white and blue, to even more exotic colours like yellow, orange and even green. There are many causes for this wide variety of colours. This ranges from the temperature of the lightning to atmospheric and environmental conditions, as mentioned below: Lilac/purple lightning Lilac or purple-tinted lightning is usually the most commonly observed colour. It is often caused by precipitation, so the observation of it most likely means that the thunderstorm generating it will be a high-precipitation storm. Lilac lightning is also rumoured to produce louder thunder, though this is disputed. Blue lightning Blue lightning bolts tend to be the hottest lightning bolts to occur on earth. They are also some of the more commonly observed colours (after lilac lightning). Atmospheric-wise, they maybe caused by small amounts of dust in the atmosphere. This is because these dust particles scatter the light coming from the lightning, in a similar way to how molecules in the atmosphere scatter the sun's light, making the sky also look blue. White lightning The light radiated by virtually all lightning bolts is white. This means that to observe it, the air must be free of pollutants and dust which can scatter and refract light - so essentially you're seeing the lightning with very little interference from the atmosphere. White lightning is also the some of the hottest lightning that occurs on earth (after blue lightning). Yellow lightning Yellow lightning bolts are much more uncommon and tend to be cooler than blue, white and lilac lightning bolts are. They also tend to be indicative of dry thunderstorms, so the presence of yellow-tinted lightning could mean that an approaching thunderstorm is a low-precipitation storm. Other colours Other colours of lightning have also been reported. Orange and red lightning has been observed and these bolts tend to be some of the coldest lightning. These colours also tend to be observed near the base of the lightning, as it strikes the ground. Green-tinted lightning is also occasionally seen, and this may be caused by the lightning heating up certain gases in the air, giving it a greenish tint. Well that was a bit of fulminology for you there. I hope you stuck with it, and thanks for reading.

It still looks like we will see a warm up at the end of this week (though not to the degree that certain newspapers have stated). So possibly 80F possible in central southern England on Friday and maybe Saturday if the front isn't too progressive in its eastward push. Just one story in the mix of a rather average pattern with some cooler weather mixed with some warm or very warm conditions. The ECM ensembles tend to keep pressure high over Europe and as such the south looks pretty warm, more mixed and cooler towards the north where low pressure will cross from time to time. Uncertainty remains from Saturday onwards as to how far north the Euro high can get and as such how the surface conditions pan out.

Evening all ,just popped in and things seem quiet on here tonight ,looking at current charts this weekend could be good for some but beyond that looks like low pressure will roll in towards Scandy . but as ever the case it all could change on the next runs . I would at this stage say that out to 144 hrs could go by what most charts currently hint at but beyond that i,m hoping high pressure to our s west could sneek in and perhaps eventually extend east ,by this time its mid summer , are we about to finish upwith an average overall summer or will more Plumes come our way . Thats one thing with our interest we never know whats over the Horizon ,But its great that we have this forum and so much knowledge to share ,cheers gang ps What a change to this time last week ,my wife is thinking of putting the gad fire on for a while .

Good evening all, I spent from Tuesday until Sunday morning in Eastburne with my wife. We decided at almost the last minute to go away to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. I could not believe the difference in the weather between there and where we live in Chelmsford. most days we had a fairly strong wind on the beach which made it somewhat unpleasant at times and certainly took the edge off the temperatures. Wednesday was the day record temperatures were recorded in the southeast and for part of the afternoon it was very hot but the cool wind arrived again and by evening a jumper was required. We had some showers on Thursday, .whereas I believe it was dry back at home. On Friday in the morning we took a bus ride to Seven Sisters Country Park which is an absolutely stunning location between Eastbourne and Brighton. The weather was absolutely brilliant, but by the time we returned to our hotel by mid afternoon the wind was much stronger and it was uncomfortable to sit on the beach. On Friday we were plagued by the wind again but missed the overnight storms, whereas at home we suffered damage to some of our garden plants as some trellis was blown off a wall on our patio. Saturday was pleasant out of the wind but by evening it was very cool. We went to see an Elton John Tribute at the bandstand in the evening. It was so cold that they were doing a trade in selling blankets. When I spoke to one of my sons back home he could not believe what I was saying as it was so hot that he did not know how to get comfortable. We left for home at about 11 along roads awash with torrential rain, but just before we arrived at the Dartford Tunnel the rain had stopped and the sky lightened. Checking at home it seems that we did not receive as much rain on Sunday as was experienced in more southern parts. I find it extremely interesting that there should be such differences in weather on a day to day basis in two places no more than 90 miles apart. We enjoyed our stay at Easbourne, but would have enjoyed it even more if it had not been for that darned strong breeze! Kind Regards Dave

On July 1st 2015, the World Data Center SILSO will lay an unprecedented milestone in the long history of the Sunspot Number. By its longevity, this reference sunspot record remains our unique direct reference retracing solar activity over more than 4 centuries and it is definitely the most widely used solar data set (more than 100 publications per year). However, this series was left unchanged since its creation by Rudolph Wolf in 1849, without any backward verification. The only innovation came in 1998 with the creation of a new similar sunspot index, the Group Number (Hoyt and Schatten 1998). However, the two parallel series showed strong differences hinting at strong inhomogeneities in either series or both. Since 2011, a group of 40 experts finally undertook a full revision of those two series in order to identify and fix the defects. This huge work was co-organized by E. Cliver (NSO, Sacramento Peak Observatory), F. Clette (WDC-SILSO, STCE) and L. Svalgaard (Stanford University) around four successive workshops (one of them held at the Royal Observatory in Brussels in 2012. Now finally, all corrections have been finalized (for a recent synthesis, see Clette et al. 2014, Space Science Reviews). Over the last few months, all corrections obtained separately, often by different scientists, were finally assembled into a final end-to-end reconstruction of the Sunspot and Group Numbers. The figure below illustrates the change between the original and new Sunspot Number series. The most notable correction is a lowering by about 18% of all numbers after 1947, to remove the bias produced by a new counting method started in 1947 in Zürich. A large variable drift affecting the "Brussels-Locarno" Sunspot Number since 1981 has also been eliminated. Note that for the new Sunspot Number, the 0.6 conventional Zürich factor is not used anymore, which raises significantly the scale of the entire series. This simply reflects the choice of modern counts by A. Wolfer, Wolf's successor, as new reference. The new numbers thus now match much more closely the raw Wolf numbers obtained by all observers since 1993 until today. More here.. http://www.sidc.oma.be/press/01/welcome.html

An interesting item here that Gibby shows every day The Verification Statistics of GFS, UKMO and ECM. This morning's verification statistics show ECM leading the way at 3 days with 96.0 pts followed by UKMO at 95.1 pts and GFS at 94.7 pts. At 5 days ECM is stll king at 85.2 pts followed by GFS at 82.1 and UKMO at 81.9 pts. Then at 8 Days ECM still leads at 48.8 pts over GFS's 46.2 pts. Finally at Day 10 ECM leads GFS at 30.3 pts to 26.9 pts from GFS. It really does look as if the GFS update has made a considerable improvement to it. It still rarely beats EC but is doing at times with UK. One other feature this shows is the that at 10 days neither of them are better than a 1 in 3 chance of being correct. To me that suggests that for we mere mortals without major computer access the anomaly charts, IF used carefully, will give much better guidance routinely. My statistics show that the overall weather pattern they predict is correct about 70%+ of the time? Put another way it is wrong about as often as EC-GFS is right!

Good work Ian! A great bit of info on there, for those who don't understand it. I hope you gave Gok some fashion tips?

Studying the models this morning, and I'm now thinking the UK might go below average in the period around D10 away from the southern counties, although most areas may keep predominately dry and sunny conditions. The culprit is the trough to our North-East and a developing ridge in the mid-Atlantic - the trough to the NE has been lurking on the models for a while, it gives us a short bite this week but I suspect it will return to give us a harder bite next week. GFS and ECM ens mean charts are in agreement out to D10 on this feature - note the greens to our north and east: The charts show signs of a ridge developing mid-Atlantic, meaning air is forced down to us from a NWly direction. Ensemble charts, of course, average things out a little, but more definition to the trough/ridge may allow air sourced from the Arctic Circle (driven by the Scandi trough) to reach us, for instance: It's fair to say at this stage that there are still a few ensemble members that continue to push ridges through the pattern so that the UK remains on the warm side, but they are increasingly in the minority. The ECM De-Bilt ensembles show this up in the D8-15 range - a warmer cluster of runs, yes, but the majority of runs returning slightly depressed temperatures for mid-July (see bottom corner): Although of course if De Bilt temperatures are lower, being 200-400 miles further west we could possibly be warmer than that, especially in SW of the UK. Indeed, should the mid-Atlantic ridge get established, southerly-facing coasts across Wales, the South and the South-West may see some excellent weather as the sun heats up the air as it travels across land. Far from certain that this will be the eventual outcome - a very small lift in the trough further north would keep many parts in warm, settled conditions - but definitely a drift towards a NWly influence today. Plumes looking off the menu for a while, and the July CET likely to drop a bit. EDIT: Of course, having taken a punt like that, the next model run was bound to do the opposite!!! The GFS 06Z shows what could happen if the Atlantic low exiting the US at T96 is slightly held-up - less interaction with the main Atlantic trough and a surge of heights ahead of it, leading to the chart below by T180 - nothing "below average" about this:

Models painting a very mixed pattern for the foreseeable - no sign of a protracted lengthy settled spell on the cards, which in my book is the hallmark of a good summer, not high temps which can easily be associated with an unsettled topsy turvy period just as we have seen these past few days. Indeed quite a chilly outlook for the north with a dig of cool air from the NW mid week, a classic NW/SE split setting up with the SE holding on to respectable temps, mostly dry fine sunny weather, whereas the NW remains exposed to the vagaries of the atlantic and its associated cloud rain wind and disappointing temps, especially given the cold SST anomalies. Later in the week signal for weak azores high ridging benefitting the SE the most as expected enabling an injection of warmer uppers again and temps entering the very warm category no doubt. Hard to call what may happen thereafter, but may reckoning is for the trough to position itself just close enough to the west of us to prevent a plume of any sorts but will allow warm SW airflow to develop, which will mean mucky cloudy condition NW average temps, above average temps in south and east and mostly dry fine albeit rather hazy conditions, and humid for all. In overview very typical standard conditions for the time of year for the foreseeable.

Not a bad day either side of the trough. It did go dark and rain was torrential

Yep great storm over Berlin just now, here are some screen captures I got.

Heres the stills from earlier,ok,not the best of quality due to the crappy camera,getting another one shortley a Cg some Ic's a crawler,three snaps of it's process well what a fantastic few days it has been for most of us,lets hope this theme continues for the next couple of months anyone know of which camera to buy for video/capturing storms,with a reasonal price,much appreciated.

This was part of a Thunderstorm which i missed most of it as i work nights,but had a half hour break at 1.30am and filmed this with my mobile phone. A nice double cg at 1:44.

Alarm went off at 5:05 and the sun wasn't in my eyes - we seem to have lost 10-15mins in the morning already

Look no further. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/589024/North-south-divide-but-a-new-scorcher-is-on-the-way

.... its all looking very 'normal' or 'average' to me. a mobile westerly pattern, unsettled but with nicer days. no washout, no heatwave (proper one lasting more then 3 days). and as knocker reminds us, better in the southeast, poorer in the northwest.

A very short overview of this morning's GFS. With the general flow remaining in the westerly quadrant the whole run is dominated by the interplay of the warm air to the south and colder air to the north and the movement north and south of the boundary between the two. Thus no settled weather pattern and marked variations in temperature with unfortunately the north as usual being the loser. This can be shown by a snap thickness chart for the weekend which has been downgraded somewhat as the forecast depression track is a tad further south. The usual caveat that this is just one run, one model. Charts weatherbell

I'm getting potential for Tuesday... Could this be the first true outing for the Stormcatcher? :-D

Exactly.. August 2008 might have been close to average but that's only because nighttime temps were kept high due to the ridiculous cloud & rain levels. Daytime temps were very disappointing - highest temp all month was 23C here.

The GEM 12z compares favourably with the gfs/ecm this evening with high pressure building in after midweek with very warm continental air pushing north into the UK, the theme of the output today has been for a rinse and repeat summery pattern, especially for the south of the uk. It appears to me like the southern half of the uk in particular has lots of fine and warm / very warm and sometimes hot weather to look forward to in the weeks ahead with occasional very humid thundery outbreaks.

Models a little more settled tonight however still largely average out to day 10 in my opinion bar the plume although it looks a bit watered down. Both Euro and GFS end up with the Azores High to the west of the UK.

Musical chairs is how I'd sum up the output today. First, ECM moves to a more undulating pattern and looks ready to bring in summer from T96, apart from a brief pause around T144. However, the NOAA, which suggested further opportunities for heat yesterday, has now gone flatter in its 8-14 day outlook (though less so in 6-10 day). This one looks like it will run a bit. Must say the odds on good weather extending further through the UK from D7 onwards are looking better tonight than they have for a couple of days. And the Thurs-Sat spell of warm sunshine still looking reasonably likely, with a few slight variances

Of course Ed. But I'm hoping for a scenario that loses the trough and allows more extensive movement of the HP north, doing away with pulses of very hot air but allowing warm conditions to spread further north thus allowing everybody to enjoy some great summer weather. Not impossible I feel.

I like the Ecm 12z this evening even though it's more progressive than the gfs 12z regarding next weekend but the benefit on this run is a warmer and more settled spell through the first half of the following week which the gfs doesn't have, the Azores high then ridges in again towards the end of the run. All in all, I'm pleased with the 12z output, the upcoming cool northerly plunge doesn't penetrate into the south and west and in any case is shunted away to the north east during wednesday with thurs/fri looking increasingly dry, sunny and much warmer by Friday, still warm in the south and east on Saturday.

An encouraging end to ECM this evening with high pressure and warmer air coming back into play

Cracking monsoon storm just north in Daventry after the Grand Prix finished, knocked the 3 signal out until just now. This was followed at 6pm by this lovely front.

Thats so terribly British storm damage. Almost at the level of the dreaded f-trampoline tornado.

Lightning hit our post box the other night apparently... Wonder no one was hurt. It's still like that now kinda expected post to be flying everywhere but maybe no one uses it or someone stole it.

Heres a few snaps i took earlier before and after the storm left and right view as the storm aproaches,sorry for the thelephone lines,can't do much about that this pic had some rotation to it as the storm went over(view to the east) from the back facing NE,some lovely mamartus and a Cb blowing up to the east,SE of the storm well that's three storms since Wednesday,not bad for here at all,ok,off to view my clips from earlier to capture some lightning stills,back in a bit.

After last weeks heat its back to average conditions now with the weather coming in off the Atlantic. Though its possible I don't think we'll see anything like last weeks heat across country for remainder of this summer, they're usually a one off event. We might see a few days with temps touching 30'C but I feel we won't see the 35'C across a large part of country like last week.

View of it from my garden

Update for the week to July 4th The current 5 day mean is on 9,860,000km2 while the 1 day extent is at 9,726,000km2. The daily anomaly (compared to 81-10) is at -788,180km2, a decrease from -831,290km2 last week. The anomaly compared to the 07, 11 and 12 average is at +618,200km2, an increase from +299,000km2 last week. We're currently 8th lowest on record, down from 7th last week. The average daily change over the last 7 days was -79.0k/day, compared to the long term average of -85.2k/day, and the 07, 11 and 12 average of -124.6k/day. The average long term change over the next week is -80.5k/day, with the 07, 11, and 12 average being -115.8k/day. The loss so far this July is the 8th smallest on record. To achieve the largest monthly drop, a daily loss of at least 121.2k/day is required, while the smallest drop requires a loss of less than 65.4k/day and an average drop requires a loss of 89.7k/day. The loss in June was the 18th smallest on record, while the average extent was the 4th smallest on record.

lol, he nearly wasn't :0...!!

Haha he's my boss! He said the shockwave knocked his GoPro tripod over, and he felt the heat from the strike.

I bet for whoever snapped this bolt in Tring, they needed a change of underwear after. Stunning (from BBC gallery).

I posted these images earlier on the storm thread but I thought might as well share them here,