Ben Sainsbury

I have also decided to bail on a chase tonight given the uncertainties... to add further doubt into your mind

This seems to be a brilliant opportunity to get some very important data.

Because elevated convection is one of the biggest challenges in forecasting at the moment I hope they didn't use the word frequent lightning... eek!

Yep, you do make a good point! Although, always easier to say in hindsight

Judging by the models, I still think anywhere east of Cambridge is within a good chance at some lively thunderstorms tonight. Disappointing I know for the rest of us...

This is the matrix for the warning, which only suggests a low impact scenario. I completely get you though, and normally I'm not the biggest fan of the Met Office warnings either. But I think given what the models were showing, this was a reasonable issuance of a low-end yellow warning. We can agree to disagree, I always respect your opinion.

Because torrential rain/flash-flooding and the occasional lightning strike produced by the storms can pose considerable risks to the general public during rush-hour.

Was only expecting sporadic strikes for the stuff this morning, so I don't think it was too far from general expectations. It does appear like the tongue instability struggled to advect far enough northwards however, with any lightning really being confined to the channel.

Quite possibly but also, the thunderstorms at 06:00-12:00 will pose a risk to those travelling to work during rush hour etc. Whereas overnight thunderstorms pose much less of a risk to safety.

For similar setups like tomorrow night, elevated thunderstorms generally are most active across far SE UK (East Sussex/Kent). Therefore, I'd like to think you're in a pretty good position as it stands!

As it stands, I'd expect any lightning would be to the south and east of you and moving away all the time. Therefore, the risk of any lightning overhead is low but not nil.

They would be moving up from the south, so yes I think you might do quite well if all goes to plan. I'll have a think about whether it's worth chasing, but if I were Eastbourne would be a good shout.

18th May last year exceeded my expectations with regards to westward extent of lightning. I'd have to look for similarities between tomorrow night and this event.

Having a look at the models, tomorrow morning I have questions over how frequent on lightning will be. I'm expecting lightning to be relatively infrequent, but further S, say in the vicinity of IOW, (where instability is likely to be higher before fizzling out) there may be more frequent lightning for a time. Tomorrow night is the main show, albeit only for the SE/E England. My best guess for a good lightning show would anywhere NNE-E of Brighton. Sporadic lightning further west, but at this point the majority of lightning will always be within the high Theta-W airmass.

Significantly better set of 06z ensembles vs the previous 0z, 18z and 12z respectively. Hopefully this is a trend going forward, for those that chase hot weather charts!

A classic loaded gun scenario here. EC 0z also going for some big storms next Tuesday, but more in the form of some very active elevated thunderstorms rather than surface-based activity. In the models can keep trending in the right direction, we might have a number of opportunities.

Looking at the bigger picture, that's a really positive set of ensembles and around 15% or so, go warmer than the OP.

You're right, some of the forecasts are 'insignificant' but that is the nature of weather, more often than not the risk of a thunderstorm/lightning on any given day is going to be small/near-zero. I would actually encourage storm forecasts on insignificant days, as I admire the enthusiasm and they encourage conversation. Personally, if the limited risk days aren't of interest, then you don't have to read them. Some greater destabilisation looks to occur Friday night, but the warmest airmass is consistently being pushed further east, reducing the ceiling for big thunderstorms. Been very busy with work (as you might expect given the poor weather at the moment), but hopefully will have more time to have a greater look at Friday's risk.

EC 12z showing a very complex evolution next Sunday into Monday. The little disturbance prevents the Azores high from really building NE'wards across the UK, whereas the GFS produces a much cleaner evolution. It really wouldn't take much to send us into the furnace, but it's all up in the air at the moment.

You thought GFS & EC 12z were good... GFS 18z is on smoke. Would be a serious August heatwave. 20C at 850hPa skirting the south coast for at least a week from T186 and looks like it'll only get more extreme into fantasy land. A good spectacle, even if it is unrealistic.

On route to Stoke-on-Trent, then will go from there.

Haha, fair! Not surprised that models are having difficulty getting a good grasp tbh.

Uh, fortunately Alderc that AROME chart displayed is 07UTC which would correspond to 08BST. So we've got an hour yet for these developments to kick off Latest radar frame would suggest dark echoes developing S of IOW.

Based on tonights runs, after earlier elevated thunderstorms locally, I will be heading up to Stoke-on-Trent to position myself for the afternoon convection. Seems like Manchester/Liverpool is right in the firing line tomorrow. Regarding the elevated thunderstorms tomorrow morning, could be anyones guess who sees them; but favouring CS/SE England, into East Midlands/E Anglia at the moment.

UKV seems to come in-line a little with the AROME for the surface-based activity tomorrow afternoon, but keeps the widespread elevated activity during the morning. If UKV comes to fruition this could be one of the most active thunderstorm days in a while.