wimblettben

Those storms we had on Wednesday night were another surprise and they came through a lot earlier than i had expected. I first noticed flashes after i had finished dinner and was watching them get gradually brighter and closer from the West and Southwest. I could just about make out faint rumbles at this point as well. I had to go in eventually though as it started raining. Then i was starting to see the direct very bright flashes of lightning to the South whilst looking out of one of the house windows, although at this point there were fairly bright flashes going on all around us and the thunder was now proper and quite frequent rumbles with the odd booming thunder. As it got even more closer i decided to watch it with no windows open as I thought it was getting too close for that and instead was watching it from the kitchen door. Before the quick downpour came we had mostly bright intra-cloud lightning near us and the odd powerful cloud-ground lightning. One of these lightning strikes made the power go out for a few seconds and shortly after the thunder came which was boomy and even in the house with everything closed it was still quite loud so i am wondering if it was a positive strike. Once we had the short downpour come through the lightning was a lot more further away but was still quite frequent for at least another hour and i was watching it outside then as it was quite a distance away and it wasn't really raining either. Over the next few hours the faint heat lightning flashes got less and less until about 1:00AM or 2:00AM when it stopped but i don't know exactly because i was too tired to stay up any longer.

I have liked the last night and day quite a lot I have to say and its had both of the things I like of thundery and windy weather combined. And we finally had some decent nighttime lightning to our far West last night after about two years of not having any. It wasn't particularly frequent and it was a long way away so couldn't here any thunder but I think there were two or three separate cells and they were producing a strike every minute or so at their most intense. The lightning I saw was a mixture of mostly sheet and intra-cloud around 11:00PM and then it died off. It wasn't until about 3:00AM after we had a shower come over us that there was some activity again but this time it was much further away only producing very faint flashes of heat lightning i.e lightning without any thunder. Oh and the Easterly and Southeasterly winds have been quite good as well with most gusts into the 20's mph and a few that got into the 30's at the very top of our nearby hill.

I have seen two distant flashes in the last hour or so and I might have just managed to hear the second flash which was from another area and a bit closer. We have been having some on and off showers here recently after the clear lull we had earlier in the evening. Think its died down again now but it's too infrequent for me to wan't to spend the rest of the night looking out for anything.

My mum came in not long ago saying she heard a rumble of thunder as well which surprised me as I wasn't expecting anything today. I probably should have checked the site though as there have been a few convective forecasts issued today and I think Nicks forecast has me under a moderate warning at the moment which we have barely had at any other time of the year. I was just doing my usual stuff on the computer when the rumble of thunder happened apparently.

Some unstable mid-level, cumulus and small cumulonimbus clouds taken on the evening of last Thursday 8th September with a rainbow on the base of one of the clouds .