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So today went for a little chase down towards Haywards Heath / Uckfield, and it was quite eventful! The storm was looking beautiful on approach, anvil pointing out into the deep blue sky, and clear backbuilding (sidebuilding?) to the western side. Seemed to take ages to get near it but suddenly there was a really dark sky behind the trees/houses to my left. Found a spot to park up, but no knowing the area it wasn’t perfect, got a few pictures with the tripod but once the winds picked up and the rain started it was pretty intense, so was confined to the car for the next 40 mins as the storm built overhead. Some really close CGs and thunderclaps followed but once I managed to drive out of the rain it began to dissipate, although there were still a number of very bright forks before it all stopped. Driving back westwards could see a lot of building clouds, but I think very strong capping stopped anything from sparking up again. Was a good chase in the end, particularly the clouds seen on the approach and between the heaviest rain

Some shots/video of the supercell in Essex earlier today as it passed overhead... video.mp4

Caught the lightning striking my next door neighbours scaffolding around 50 feet away from where I was watching the storm, I knew it was close as the flash and crack were instantaneous, my previous close call was a tad further away around half a mile, I think this is as close as I want to get! I was safely *Gulp* indoors! ️️ Closest strike I've had in around 35 years of photographing lightning! Gravesend, Kent.

Best storm in a long time in St Evenage… IMG_5827.MOV IMG_5824.MOV

Just seen this picture on Twitter

Well, that storm was quite something, to say the least.

WOW!!!

That Tring storm finished the evening off perfectly for me

Decent little storm finally. Seems I've captured an electrical stag!

My current view in Gravesend looking to essex

Nice structure looking inland from the Sussex coast.

Around this time of year seems to be a good time for storms, I'm not sure I can post old photos on here? But I will anyway The triple strike was taken 18th July 2014 and the crawler was 19th July 2017 both the same place in Gravesend, Kent. Hopefully add to those soon, maybe 20th July 2021 will come up trumps?

Been out chasing all afternoon, what a fantastic day for storms, great to see so many have had their fix today! In Cambridgeshire I got caught in some torrential rain accompanied with pretty large hail which turned the roads to rivers, was a bit hairy for a time. Had loads of thunder and lightning and some lovely cloud structure as I drove back towards Northants with the cell near Thrapston going bonkers for a time. Did a quick time lapse of some rotation just to the south of Cambridge.

Overhead at sevenoaks FullSizeRender.mov

maybe he can see the charts but doesn't really understand enough to break them down, so enjoys the commentating and breaking down of the charts by others here in forum?

Yesterday around 5 ish looking NE. Beautiful.

Washout Summer? Has barely rained here in the last three months with record breaking temperatures.

This was Braintree earlier not too much local T&L but the rain was the worse we have had in 13 years...it just did not let up for 15 mins or so...apologies if the photos are a bit rubbish!

Short clip of us driving through the hail near Corby. We chased this cluster of storms for an hour and a half, huge amounts of rain, gusts, lightning and thunder. received_1000979277108669_1.mp4

The Leicester storm looks like a beast!

Thaxted, Essex

Honestly this is the most bonkers thing I've ever seen. Sorry I'm about 5 miles NNE of Braintree.

Another tough day for working in, everybody was shattered, clients, customers, del drivers, ....counting the days down to relief at the weekend. Most of us haven't a beach to lie on mid afternoon enjoying the hot sand, most have to come home in hot cars and roasting public transport to houses over 30c then try and sleep.

With the change in the wind, I am directly in line of the Market Harborough beast.

Thought i was done for today but the skies blocked out the sun and more rumbling came back and look who decided to make an appearance

What position are you in?

I know there are people on here dying from the heat, but this heat is creating such lovely scenes with weather, I know not everyone lives in the south east but the weather yesterday was beautiful and would like these hot themed models to continue until it's time to swap seasons

That’s exactly it Monkeypants I struggle to understand what there showing I just understand Orenge/Red high pressure green/blue Low pressure/cold

The MDT risk from CW have convinced me to definitely have a chase day today. Likely to position near to Stevenage, get there for around 12-1pm and should have a good 8 hours or so of potential storms.

Just updated for tomorrow,...Ooooh!!! Day 2 Convective Outlook VALID 06:00 UTC Tue 20 Jul 2021 - 05:59 UTC Wed 21 Jul 2021 ISSUED 22:13 UTC Mon 19 Jul 2021 ISSUED BY: Dan Upper ridge continues to cover Ireland and southern/western Britain on Tuesday, but with a more pronounced upper trough sliding slowly southeastwards over eastern England and the North Sea through the day. This will aid both cooling of the mid/upper levels (therefore increasing instability) and promote broad lift across the area - and as such the environment will be more conducive to more numerous thunderstorms than was the case on Monday. That said, profiles are still quite dry with hints of some subtle warm noses that could inhibit deep convection, at least initially, but overall this may help to keep cells spaced apart somewhat (although inevitably some backbuilding/daughter cells generated by outflow may fill these gaps with time). Strong heating of a moist low-level airmass (dewpoints of 17-19C with 2m temperatures likely to peak around 28-32C) will yield substantial CAPE, in the range 900-1,500 J/kg. Forecast soundings suggest surface temperatures of 27-28C will be required for convective initiation, and while convective cloud may take several attempts to gain some height in a broad sense, rapid upward motion is likely where forced ascent from the surface occurs (convergence zones and upslope flow over the Downs/Chilterns etc). Therefore it is these zones that will provide the primary focus for sustained and explosive development, probably not until around 1pm BST at the earliest but continuing through the afternoon and early evening hours. The areas at greatest risk will typically be closest to the upper trough where instability will be maximised, capping less of an issue and better forced ascent - hence the SLGT issued. While undisturbed convergence zones may look rather neat/obvious initially, outflow/cold pools and storm interactions will create a rather distorted surface pattern through the afternoon which will naturally make it difficult to predict where new cells could develop at these longer lead times. Nonetheless, it seems plausible multiple thunderstorms could develop in the East Midlands, East Anglia and parts of SE England through the afternoon and early evening, some evolving into clusters, before eventually weakening. Around the southwestern flank of the upper trough, slightly stronger west/northwesterly flow will be present across the East Midlands and East Anglia, which coupled with weak and locally backed surface winds (potential for rotating updrafts) will result in 20-30kts DLS, and this may aid storm longevity at times. The rapid upward motion aiding vorticity stretching along convergence zones could allow a couple of funnel clouds / weak tornadoes, although for the most part the deeply-mixed boundary layer will result in fairly high cloud bases - but these may tend to lower towards evening. The primary hazards will be local flash flooding but also large hail, potentially 2-3cm in diameter in the strongest cells - and as such a SVR has been introduced. Quite gusty winds could also occur given the well-mixed, deep sub-cloud layer. Other isolated heavy showers / thunderstorms will be possible, such as over the hills/mountains of the Pennines and southern Scotland, and central/northern portions of Ireland. Convective Weather WWW.CONVECTIVEWEATHER.CO.UK Forecasting thunderstorms and severe convective weather across the British Isles and Ireland for up to the next 5 days.

Start, middle and end. What a lovely convective day!

Easy to see where thunderstorms have formed looking at the wind convergence Looks like this will move westwards..

I see a few things bubbling up over @Alderc's way..

The big standoff at the moment seems to be the Models v St Swithin......

Might just mean someone’s dumped a load of rubbish next to your house

Very similar to yesterday with local heating and low level wind convergence zones. I say the same as yesterday but late afternoon early evening there may be a different storm opportunity. I did think maybe it was driven by upper level vorticity but looking at the forecast skewTs it may be driven by a bit more moisture at the 700 -800 hpa level. These may not be surface based storms by 9pm. Looking at overnight soundings suggests that 700-800 hpa moisture is prevalent across the UK apart from the Cambourne sounding in the South West. Comparing the EUMETSAT satellite images and forecast upper level vorticity raises some questions about upper level dynamics as well. Best guess we have some London and South East storms during the afternoon and the early evening storms for East Anglia with a chance those early evening storms might be a little more widespread. t

Falkirk doing a pretty good impersonation of SW France at the moment, just wish we had a boulangerie so I could get fresh croissants

Looking at the Gfs 0z operational, following a somewhat more unsettled period from the weekend and into the last days of July, early august sees a return of largely settled and increasingly warmer conditions once again.... I think this would be a decent result, we can’t expect constant very warm / hot and sunny in a u k summer...can we?

Good luck tomorrow guys but for me sadly i will be stuck in a sweltering warehouse on the afternoon shift there has been some great pics/clips in here today,...keep up the good work guys and hopefully some more opportunities in the next few days,i am free this weekend if any storms kick off,...i will be on the chase.

Well, hopefully the Met Office continue being useless at predicting cloud amounts and associated temperatures. Forecast was for overcast conditions all day. In reality, sunshine for pretty much the whole day - albeit a tad hazy at times. Thanks to the sunshine, up to a lovely 24c (compared to the 20c forecast). Light winds and the drought continues; had to irrigate the bog garden for the first time in years as the Primula Denticulata's were all drooping badly. Not surprised the Fire Service were issuing high fire hazard warnings over the weekend. Lovely sunset this evening... And very surprised to get this visitor at the back door in full daylight at 21:45....

Certainly won't be cold in the slightest...

I won’t try sugar coating it, these are the best of a bad bunch from the GEFS 6z regarding next week, but, that doesn’t necessarily mean next week will be particularly bad!?...just nothing like as incredible as this week...perspective, proportion and all that jazz..hmm, I think I did actually sprinkle some sugar didn’t I?... !

Im confused, its testing my understanding of the anomalies.. The GFS insists on lifting the weekend trough northward and that merges with another to form a mean upper trough just west of north . The anomalies do show some shallow troughing to our near northwest but theres a positive pressure anomaly . The anomalies appear to keep the weekend trough to our South over northern France. So theres a big difference here, anomalies keep the main trough to our south, the GFS to our north by the timeframe the 6-10 day anomaly chart covers. The ECM lifts it out too but to our Northeast. If the anomalies (yet again) are nearer the mark then it throws out the window any operational run beyond about t120 which would be extrordinary

Yep, I hate this heat but I hate the guilt tripping more! Every weather bothers someone in some sense. Wishing for or against it makes no bloody difference.

Hottest day of the year so far at 25.4C yesterday, I wonder if the heat builds as forecast over the next 48 hours, how high that will go...? As @Puffy MacCloudsays, though, unnecessarily hot. Whoever invented car air conditioning gets my blessed thanks.

The outlook is a bit wishy-washy this morning. Some areas in the south are likely to be quite wet through the weekend with the slow moving low. Exactly where to hard to tell at this stage. Once it clears we're sort of in a no mans land early next week. In between everything. No washout though with low pressure out of the way to the NW - sunshine and showers likely with pressure and low-ish heights. This carries on through the week really. GFS goes settled again into August, but way too far into the yonder to take seriously at the moment

Will be in the mid to high 50'c at work today, so I personally am not enjoying this spell. Also, looking after disabled people who cannot understand that if they are too hot, going and sitting in the glasshouses or polytunnels, is not going to cool them down lol. I think we're going to have to do board games today, rather than horticulture. My perfect summer weather is around 21'c to 22'c with a breeze and scattered cloud, but I suppose each to their own :-)

The maximum temperature today was 25.3deg.C at 15:05, which was quite unnecessarily hot and requires a letter of complaint to be written to someone in authority. Is weather a devolved matter? Probably not; this has got Boris written all over it. Anyway, according to my weather station, today is the hottest day of the last 25 days and on further trailing through the menus I see that in the same period the lowest temperature was 7.8deg.C on the 6th of July. Meanwhile, again over the same period, the highest temperature in my office here in the house (east facing) was 20.2deg.C and the minimum was 18.4deg.C, which if nothing else shows the thermal inertia of 75cm thick walls. Right, Morag, bring me my quill and some parchment... @NUT Sorry, just noticed your post - the rainfall amount for the last 25 days here is 16.2mm, which for this part of the west coast of Scotland is unusually little. May require a second missive.

it looks like they are! ECM did this a couple of weekends back and we had no rain at all