A.J

hate to say it but cloud cover could well be the killer for thunderstorms in the west midlands today....plenty of cloud spilling up from the SW dampening down convection with no clear spots upwind of us on satellite imagery, I guess there's a chance of some embedded activity from the stuff streaming up from South Wales....More chance IMO for the east and south midlands, already two lively thunderstorms have popped up in the extreme south of the region in some clearer but unstable air, these will continue streaming NEwards as the afternoon/evening progresses....As already posted in the convective thread, these cells have plenty of energy and more especially LLS & DLS to play with, keeping the updrafts nice and clear with PPN fanning out ahead of the cores, the shear thus helping these cells regenerate and aid longevity.....Wouldn't surprise me for these and any other storms to rival the fabled May 9th storm of last year in terms of intensity & lightning as synoptics look locally very helpful

plenty of action for our brethren over in Ireland....the lightning detector is lit up like a christmas tree!

Get in my son, I'll have a bit of that!

there's nothing quite like a good old fashioned West Midlands washout, you know, the kind of washout that provides a 3 drops of rain deluge

It's certainly been a while!.....and you're absolutely right, it's awful waking up and seeing the same slate grey skies every morning.....talking of which, yes it's groundhog day again, monotonous grey skies with hints of drizzle this morning, oh for a pattern change!

Any chance of a bit model output discussion please chaps?....ta!

Caught an absolute soaking down near Worcester today...pretty much non stop heavy rain from 3-7pm...not fun if you work outside for a living! ......back home, the weather apparently wasn't too bad, a couple of spells of showery rain

yep, dry here, certainly not the washout that was anticipated...saying that though, ppn is on the increase over eastern parts and this is expected to train across our region over the next few hours, so might well end up being increasingly wet as the day progresses

In the immortal words of Frankie Howard...'Not on your nelly!' ...lol It doesn't surprise me to hear reports of thunder in the south midlands, I was working in Bishampton this afternoon/evening, about 5 miles from Evesham, Gloucestershire and after a warm, humid afternoon, mid-level Ac Cas was thick enough to give out a few drops of thundery rain and the skies looked especially disturbed and unstable to my south east (about 6pm)...Looking at the radar imagery for that time, it must have been the cell to the west of Oxford

Honestly?...blimey it stopped raining here at 3pm, oh well...Anyhoos, the updated models do support an area of persistent rain hanging around here for quite a while tomorrow, which is a turn up for the books, as when I left for work this morning it looked a dry day tomorrow...Maybe it will be a 'washout' after all.....back to tonight, an outside sniff of seeing a flash of lightning, but I won't be holding my breath, or staying up I think

I'm going to ask Paul to add the word 'washout' to the banned list!...I hear it banded about seemingly ever other day in this thread, yet rarely do they occur....There's a hidden message there I'm sure

One of your infamous 'washouts' eh Mark?.....Haven't seen one of your forecasted washouts yet matey and I only live 5 miles from you!

HeHe Shermy, every time you get a storm I drink 10 pints of that stuff and then start posting in here!

and talking about 'rounds' some of you lucky folk in the south east owe us storm starved midlanders one....so with that in mind, I'll have a Speckled Hen please..

On behalf of all of us up in the west midlands....."Welcome to our world!!"

yes, damp & drizzly here with occasionally heavier bursts of rain....it is forecasted to fizzle out as the day progresses, I really hope so, I've had enough of the awful weather!

It wasn't just you 'H', when the others joined in, jeez reading the thread became hard work...you were on the sauce?..ah that explains it then...lol well on to today, a quieting down day by the looks of things, another train of storms have left Belgium in the past hour or two, but have lost all electrification over the north sea but are currently producing some very heavy rain over Norfolk...Moving into the central England and the west country, here we have the remnants of last night's fun, with widespread light to moderate rain with a few pockets of heavier rain embedded, which should start to die out as the afternoon/evening progresses

Whilst I'm a keen admirer of storm enthusiasts (being one myself), some of the posts in the thread have bordering on the ludicrous....By all means, post your storm reports (not forgetting to post your storm reports also in the 'storm reports' thread) but please, please moderate your use of the over-top posts full of capital letters, screams, YAHHHOOOOOS of every flash of lightning etc etc, it makes the thread hard work to read and there are lots of sensible posts and requests for forecast updates that are getting utterly drowned out........ In answer to the posts requesting updates in the forecast for the midlands etc I would hazard a guess that there are reasonable chances of these storm clusters surviving for some considerable time and may well affect those regions later on, as storms are elevated in nature and are feeding off WAA thus do not rely on surface heating or even so much on low level moisture..As long as the mid-level air retains this WAA then it will continue to destabilize...Worth noting though that as the LP centre over Biscay drifts further west, storms may develop a more pronounced westerly component...Still, exciting times for many folks tonight in central & southern areas through the night!

well the storms are still electrically active and are still heading are way, indeed the sferics seemed to pick up as the storms have moved inland, plus another nice cluster leaving the Belgium coast...could yet be interesting for us later on in the night

Well, that cell was short and to the point, 5 mins of heavy rain, one rumble and now it's falling apart quickly

well, the good news is that today's first home-grown is developing right over my head...thunder to my SE...this has fired up from nowhere over the past 30 mins...

erm....something is developing right over my head...we have thunder

Some beefy thunderstorms have fired up over southern France in the past hour, and by the looks of the SAT24 visible imagery, convection/storms may well be initiating in the Paris area....An area to watch for later on tonight?

sorry to be blunt, but why?

Hehe..lf that came off, we wouldn't be seeing anvils, more like mushroom clouds with fallout and a 100 mile blast radius!