Jamie M

Timelapse from today, sea convergence storm can be seen developing at around 1:10

WRF tends to have a dewpoint bias and thus moisture is overdone and CAPE is massively overdone. It's mentioned in Dan Holley's paper "A climatology of convective available potential energy in Great Britain" from April 2014. Error - Cookies Turned Off RMETS.ONLINELIBRARY.WILEY.COM Click on the title to browse this journal

Another storm here earlier, was sadly out of the area but looks like around 7 mm of rain within the 15 minutes or so it was here and gone. Sea convergence + surface heating all being united together again. Two storms in 2 days is not bad going!

Timelapse from today. Some rotation can be seen near the chimney directly in front at around 16:20.

Cheeky bit of lightning

Sped up video of the scud earlier. spedupvideo.mp4

Bloody 'ell. Was sat there looking at some scud inflowing into the storm to my NW and it absolutely exploded over me. Dropped 6 mm of rain within the 10 minutes or so it was here. I'll have to look at the camcorder footage and see if it caught anything worthwhile. Couple of clips from during the peak of the storm and as it moved off. 20210517_164319.mp4 20210517_165114.mp4

Doom and gloom nearby

Day 1 Convective Outlook VALID 06:00 UTC Mon 17 May 2021 - 05:59 UTC Tue 18 May 2021 ISSUED 06:48 UTC Mon 17 May 2021 ISSUED BY: Dan Little change is expected on Monday, with broad upper troughing covering much of north and northwest Europe. Diurnal heating will yield 300-600 J/kg CAPE and showers will easily develop with modest surface heating, especially aided by low-level convergence zones and orographic forcing, showers/weak thunderstorms then drifting generally to the ESE with time. As with the past few days, deep layer shear will be weak resulting in pulse-type storm mode for the most part, with cold pool/outflow aiding development of daughter cells nearby. Forecast profiles suggest winds will be fairly unidirectional, however as sea breezes develop the backed low-level winds may result in a slight increase in bulk shear from Yorkshire down to Kent, and this could in theory aid storm longevity a little. The strongest cells during the afternoon and early evening could perhaps produce hail 1.0-1.5cm in diameter and local wind gusts of 40-50mph. Showers/weak thunderstorms will gradually decay through the evening hours, however a few will drift towards the Channel Islands from the northwest with a small risk of lightning, and showers are also likely to return close to SW England and S Wales during the early hours of Tuesday which may produce the odd isolated lightning strike.

Amazing set of shots from the Sheerness cam.

sheerness about to get a soaking!

Starting to go bang near Ashford.

Day 2 Convective Outlook: Sat 15 May 2021 VALID 06:00 UTC Sat 15 May 2021 - 05:59 UTC Sun 16 May 2021 ISSUED 21:46 UTC Fri 14 May 2021 ISSUED BY: Dan Cold air in the mid-levels will spread eastwards across the UK/Ireland on Saturday, following the passage of a weakening occlusion. The net result is an environment with modestly steep mid-level lapse rates and unstable to SSTs and surface heating inland. As such, 300-600 J/kg skinny CAPE is likely with numerous showers developing quickly in response to diurnal heating, tending to become organised along distinct zones of low-level convergence - such as along portions of southern England, a zone from Wales to the south Midlands and across portions of Ireland. Even the occlusion across parts of northern and eastern England is likely to turn increasingly convective/showery in nature through the day. Sporadic lightning will be possible from virtually any shower that develops, making it difficult to highlight specific areas - so for now have introduced two SLGTs where shower coverage should be more widespread, but lightning is certainly possible outside of these areas too. The SLGTs may be expanded/other areas added on Saturday morning if confidence increases. For the most part, deep layer shear will be relatively weak leading to pulse-type storm mode much of the time - however, a notable wind-shift line associated with slightly higher dewpoints in the light south/southeasterly flow ahead vs relatively lower dewpoints and a breezier westerly flow behind may be the focus for locally enhanced directional shear, especially in the low-levels and may encourage some weak updraft rotation. Current guidance suggests this boundary will be located from east Wales to Southampton around 12z and will shift and pivot northeastwards with time, aligned Birmingham-Dover around 15z and Birmingham-Ipswich by 18z (although possibly losing its identity by this stage). A similar situation is also true for the Irish Midlands, with a light easterly surface flow on the leading edge of the main shower activity likely enhancing low-level shear. However the exact strength and location of such small-scale features is subject to some uncertainty. Main hazards will be small hail and localised surface water flooding from showers training over similar areas. Enhanced low-level vorticity along convergence zones may encourage a couple of funnel clouds to develop. Showers will tend to weaken in intensity through the evening hours, but some will persist right through the night - especially near southern and western coastal areas, but not exclusively so. Therefore there will be an ongoing low risk of isolated lightning overnight.

It was picked up on 3 of the UKMO cams earlier. All at 21:21 UTC. Nice addition to the already many flashes of lightning occuring tonight!

Rotating storm in the SW

Motion on that storm NW of PB looks interesting. Right split?

Good to see some thunderstorms on radar again!

Already heard someone call this supercell based on this hook so you know it's been a day for a Kent clipper.

Had a random rumble of thunder here even though I'm a good 30 miles away from Folkestone. Shows the elevated nature of them I guess.

Quite the storm arriving!

Dymchurch Beachcam - Romney Marsh, The Fifth Continent THEROMNEYMARSH.NET Dymchurch Beachcam streaming live pictures from Dymchurch Beach One to watch too, think I've seen a flash on there.

Ominous looking at Dover

I'd say the instability zone is pretty visible on radar currently. The further west from SE Kent they get, the quicker they collapse so Dover/Folkestone being main target zones for those later.

UKV pulling out the fireworks I see.