convector

france gets all the glory

Looks like cells are developing around newbury

yeah that one's looking good. Anyone in the path should keep an eye out for lightning as it's often not detected with elevated storms.

i think so too, but it shows there's instability now moving northwards

signs of elevated convection over oxford with some mid level cumulus building

Finally something to look forward too

Storms going up now over colchester. Anyone nearby?

Ah that's a shame, it would be so interesting to get confirmations on supercells in this country. I use RASP UK for forecast soundings - the weather stations you've mentioned are available there but i don't trust the latest data are real. It's still very useful though.

A little off topic but does anyone know if we actually send up weather balloons in this country? I was surprised to learn we have doppler radar the other day when reading up on the 2012 oxfordshire supercell (a couple stations were used to track this storm), so i'm interested to know if there's anywhere to find real soundings.

This is sad. . . It's June already and not a pattern in sight for good thunderstorms How many years has it been since we had a good season?

Looks like a little bit. I expect something more will happen in a couple hours if convergence sets up right - maybe around northamptonshire

Some decent storms around today, not much in the way of lightning activity but plenty of hail and things to look at. These setups have surprised me before so i figured i'd try chasing them this time. I set out around 3:30 and headed north on the A34. The cells near bicester looked promising and the lack of shear made it really easy to get up close to them - they were pretty much just building on the spot. This thing put out a tonne of hail and and couple lightning strikes before dying out. At 4:45 the focus shifted north and i decided to drive west on the A41 to get ahead of the rain. By this time new cells were developing over milton keynes and going strong. i blasted north into buckingham and got this picture before my phone gave up on me. The one on the right was decaying but the updraft on the left kept going and left a huge hail swath on the route i was taking. It also put out a lightning strike, which i heard through the car. Not bad for this time of year. I continued chasing, going north west through MK and then up into northampton by about 6pm; by this time the sun was setting and i was running out of fuel so i called it a day. Went pretty well, i'll definitely need to buy a dashcam for next time.

that is potent storm going off over the cotswolds right now - can see it building from oxford.

i was just coming here to say that - after such a terrible storm season it would be a blessing to get anything thundery at this point. really hope this stays on the cards

two big strikes here - wasn't expecting anything today.

yeah it really is beautiful. wish i could timelapse the sunset but not enough charge on the camera.

that's the dream right there

can you post a link here?

Wow! that structure is great to see. looks like a decent right mover on radar

The main storm in EA looks like a supercell now Anyone chasing it?

http://www.meteociel.fr/observations-meteo/satellite.php?region=uk&mode=animation-visible-france This is what I've been using recently (EUMETSAT). Images are much clearer than sat24 but updates less frequently.

yeah the lightning count for that night was huge - wish i could've been in bournemouth. still had a great view from oxford, even without taking a direct hit

that patchy rain north of salisbury is starting to look interesting

i was thinking the same. CAPE modelled in the area of the showers is in the region of 300-500J/kg right now, increasing overnight. The metoffice had a shortwave running up through bournemouth, the midlands and northern england around midnight. Not sure if that's still the case now, but some of the short range models are supporting this. I'm waiting on the next fax update.

wow it's thursday? i've been thinking it was friday this whole time -_-