Thundery wintry showers

Had a heavy shower and some rumbles at Sandhutton around midday but now it's dry with sunny intervals and showers locked to the north and east of here. The GFS precipitation charts did in fairness hint at this possibility.

Convection sprouting up around Sanhutton, just had a few distant rumbles to the N/NE and currently having a heavy rainstorm.

I do think with some members it's getting like much of June 2010- the desire for a spell of predominantly warm dry sunny weather, and then when the model outputs show one, latching onto negatives and teeth-gnashing because it isn't high pressure from T+0 to T+180. While it is not unusual to get anticyclonic summer spells lasting upwards of a few days in Britain, it is harder to get the high to sit in the right place to allow a large majority of the country to have predominantly clear skies. The positioning of the upcoming high pressure looks pretty ideal for this- I keep checking and re-checking the model outputs and I am struggling to find much evidence that skies won't be mostly clear between Thursday and Saturday. A belt of weak frontal cloud over the far north of Scotland on Friday is all I can spot on the latest GFS run. Until a couple of days ago many longer-term teleconnections and the NOAA 8-14 day outlook were supporting a mid-Atlantic high scenario and a trough over and to the east of Britain but there has been a shift towards a long-term outlook with the trough stuck to the west of the British Isles, which should promote winds from south of west when the weather turns more changeable again.

Dry with sunny intervals until 5pm, but with frequent thunder from noon onwards, associated with a succession of convective cells to the west (which started off quite innocuous-looking with little showing on the radar) and also one which sprouted up to the east. A rain shower and further thunder with near-overhead flashes at 5 to 5:30pm, then a quieter, mostly dry cloudy end to the day as the cells decayed. An afternoon max of 22.0C in the back garden, and the overnight min was 12.8C. Definitely the sort of day that I haven't experienced before other than in central/southern France, where the combination of frequent thunder and lightning but little or no rain appears more common.

A strange day here- frequent thunder from 12 to 5pm with only occasional lulls, and some pretty loud bangs- but only one moderate shower! Some of the thundery activity came from innocuous-looking cells, though there were also some spectacular ones about between 2 and 4pm- all ingredients that I would more commonly associate with thunderstorms in central and southern France.

Seems that the thunderstorm fizzled as it came overhead (though not before giving frequent loud rumbles and some flashes), so just moderate rain at the moment, but the radar shows that it isn't over yet with more cells to the south of this one.

A strange day here in Sandhutton, frequent thunder between 12 and 4pm despite no rain! A direct hit is approaching now, so will be interesting to see if we get any heavy rain or hail. Remarkable to see that my old home region of South Tyneside has been hit by two monstrous thunderstorms shortly after I left (28th June and now today) although of course I picked up the big one over Norwich on 18th July and have had a lot of thunder both yesterday and today.

Nothing overhead at Sandhutton yet but thunder has been frequent to the west for about an hour and a half now- the line of Cb cells has got more impressive with time.

I'm often one of the first to point out cloud under high pressure, but I think cloud is unlikely to be as extensive or long-lasting as suggested by the above summary. Tuesday looks to me like being cloudy and quite wet over much of Ireland and south-west England, with brighter conditions and scattered showers elsewhere, and then by Wednesday the cloud may already start fizzling out over SW England with sunshine and isolated showers elsewhere, as the front weakens and continues to drift south-eastwards. By Thursday, I reckon that skies will probably be largely clear for the majority of the country. Towards the weekend complications arise as the advancing low pressure will slowly bring rain up from the south-west, possibly accompanied by thunder in places, while the south-easterly winds may bring some low cloud into coastal areas of NE England and more widely in eastern Scotland. High pressure sticking around for a few days before retreating eastwards allowing the next low in is quite typical of a normal British summer and has, in the past, been typical of a fair number of moderately warm dry sunny months. A "washout" type pattern would generally have no more than the occasional brief ridge from the Azores High in between depressions, lasting no longer than 24-36 hours, followed by the next set of fronts, not a few days with a 1025mb high sat over us.

A few rumbles of thunder at Sandhutton despite no clouds in the vicinity that look large enough to give thunder- some bright echoes on the radar developing to the SSE though!

Got some photos of the thundery activity over Sandhutton today, though not quite as spectacular as the storms that I had in Norwich on the 18th July. First thundery shower at around 2pm: A couple of photos from the long sunny spell from 2:30 to 6:30pm, showing cells continuing to move northwards well out to the west: And the second thundery outbreak, associated with a rather bigger cluster: And finally, two stills from the one lightning capture that I managed, though it didn't come out very well due to unfavourable light conditions: Hoping to get some more good photos to upload over the next two days- the synoptic setup looks favourable enough!

Skies associated with the high pressure area are likely to be largely clear with just a scattering of cloud patches initially, which will tend to burn off quite quickly once the high establishes over the country. However, the frontal system will bring extensive cloud cover which will be much more stubborn. Therefore, once the high pressure gets overhead it is likely to turn dry and predominantly sunny except near where the front is. On this basis, if the front was to end up off the south coast as per Wednesday's FAX chart then the weather would end up dry and sunny except near the south coast where there would be rather more cloud. Edit: I see that Millhouse got there first and posted a similar assessment.

Dry and sunny throughout the morning, a brief downpour with occasional thunder at 2pm, sunny again from 2:30 to 6:30pm, and then some organised thunderstorms during the past hour and a half, mainly to the west of here but with a couple of overhead lightning strikes and bangs. Although the severest weather has passed away, there is still occasional thunder even now. The afternoon max was 23C. More reminiscent of the sort of daily weather I'd expect from an unsettled summer spell in central/southern France than in north Yorkshire.

For three consecutive GFS runs the front for Tuesday/Wednesday has been virtually non-existent except over Ireland, allowing England, Wales and Scotland a relatively straightforward picture with some sunny spells and declining shower activity as the high builds from the south. In particular Tuesday, which was progged yesterday to be a dull wet day over most of England and Wales, is now projected to be bright with scattered showers. There is also little evidence of frontal disturbances on the Tuesday/Wednesday charts from ECMWF and UKMO, so the odds are swinging in favour of a "sunny" high to start with, rather than a "cloudy" one- that would set most of us up for a good few days of warm sunshine and at most only isolated showers. The south-easterly flow indicated for the weekend would be likely to bring temperatures in the mid to high 20s over most of England, Wales and south-western Scotland, although an onshore breeze would keep parts of E Scotland and NE England cooler with some haar likely near the east coast. It does look like the sort of synoptic evolution that triggers a thundery breakdown as continental air clashes with advancing Atlantic systems, but too far out at this stage to be able to have much confidence on this.

Two overhead flashes and loud bangs recently, and frequent flashes to the west, although it now seems to be retreating northwards.

Some more thunder and occasional lightning flashes around Sandhutton, the heaviest precipitation is passing to the west of me (probably somewhere around Catterick as Cloud 10 suggested) but some fairly heavy stuff on a direct collision course- also another pulse seems to be shooting up to the south of this lot according to the radar.

Clear blue skies here and 22.6C, showers well away to the west and east and south, but I still expect some to head up from the south this evening. It's certainly one of those days where many people, having heard forecasters talking apologetically about a continuation of the miserable unsettled theme of Summer 2012, would be left feeling that the forecasters got it wrong, though of course in the regions that have had one downpour after another it may be a different story. I feel that today's weather has had quite a continental feel to it so far here in North Yorkshire, with not much wind either.

A long clear slot extends down from N Yorkshire to the Midlands, so a long sunny interval in store before the next batch of showers and thunderstorms approaches towards evening, I think.

I've noticed that- showers diverting westwards and fizzling as they approach Cleadon and hit the winds coming in off the North Sea! I remember the feeling well... Actually having a minor thunderstorm at Sandhutton at present following a warm sunny morning, occasional loud cracks of thunder and one bright flash of lightning to the SW.

Minor thunderstorm at Sandhutton, occasional rumbles, one flash of fork lightning, rain turning heavy, following a sunny and warm morning.

Some fair assessments of the likely resulting weather from the charts Millhouse posted. An anticyclone displaced from the Azores over to western Europe generally beats a ridging Azores High as far as daytime temperatures, sunshine amounts and lack of frontal rainfall are concerned, and at present it looks like weak fronts and banks of cloud trapped within the high will be less of an issue than last time around- although I think there's still scope for projected cloud and rain amounts for Tuesday-Thursday to vary either way. With the relatively strong sun at this time of year and lack of a tropical maritime influence I would expect any cloud to have largely dispersed by Friday at the very latest, but it is unclear whether any organised cloud will penetrate east of Ireland at all at this stage.

Some heavy downpours appearing just south of Tyneside on the radar. Meanwhile as far as my area is concerned, a line of heavy showers approaching North Yorkshire is producing some sferics, though it has been dry and warm with sunny intervals here so far.

Promising start to the day here in Sandhutton- some warm sunshine and now the convective towers are going up. Heavy showers and thunderstorms are usually hit-and-miss affairs, but whatever happens this afternoon looks "interesting" as do Sunday and Monday afternoons.

No sign of a repeat of July '06 on the horizon but I suggest that the outputs that the models are showing for the coming week are about as "summery" (in the traditional warmth/sunshine/outdoor sense) as we could reasonably expect given the unfavourable-looking teleconnections. Even the current low pressure spell is taking on a different character to those earlier in the summer, with emphasis on sunshine and slow-moving thundery downpours, and then the high pressure area looks like holding on until Friday/Saturday before the breakdown comes in from the west. For the next three days it still looks as if showery and thundery activity will be widespread over the weekend before transferring to eastern areas on Monday. GFS is now making a lot less of the frontal system that I was posting about earlier for Tuesday/Wednesday, with a more straightforward picture of sunshine and declining shower activity during Tuesday and Wednesday for most although with some cloudier showery weather spreading into Scotland for a time. Dry and sunny for the majority from Thursday to Saturday though, with temperatures around the mid 20s suggested. The NOAA 8-14 day outlook is still showing the trough over the British Isles and a mid-Atlantic ridge, which would most likely be a rather cool, cloudy and changeable type synoptic pattern, but the GFS and ECMWF extended outputs show only tentative evolution towards that setup with the mean trough still generally out to the west at days 8-10. I'm pretty confident that there will be no long-term pattern change, but despite that we do look likely to get a warmer, sunnier and, in many regions, drier than average first half of August, with rainfall totals sensitive to localised thundery downpours.

I agree with Millhouse here- the GFS 18Z actually looks very similar to the 12Z to me, with a front giving dull damp conditions over most of England and Wales on Tuesday, retreating to southern England on Wednesday allowing other areas to brighten up, and Thursday/Friday look sunny and dry for almost everywhere bar a few isolated showers. Meanwhile, many parts of Scotland look likely to be predominantly dry and bright from Tuesday onwards.