SNOW_JOKE

Cells beginning to spring into life around the SE currently, latest UKV shows an area of potential storms moving northwards along with developments in the home counties before moving NE into E.Anglia by morning. Then the 'fun and games' begin just after 10am with intense rainfalls into E.Anglia & southern parts of Lincs throughout the day. Got my eyes glued to the radar for the next 2hrs to see if reality matches the latest UKV output.

Based on the UKV i'm tempted to head out in the car to 'base' somewhere around Newark-on-Trent which is only 2hr away, but as seen last night what the model-runs are predicting and what happens in reality can be two different things entirely.

Northampton cells are looking to be developing on the western edge of the first MSC.

Its a long-shot but hoping for clear skies here (if it's not going to thunder overnight) to allow the possibility of seeing the tops of the storms over the SE & East Anglia lightning-up in the dark. Given the distance it's right on the edge of the peripheral but a few times in the past i've seen the tops of cells over N.London some 140 miles away from the hills around Buxton.

For where I am a trip up to the hills (somewhere like Combs Moss, Shining Tor, Holme Moss) is as close to seeing any potential night-time lightning other than going on a 300-mile round trip, Thursday's potential storms more central/westwards has my interests in terms of a morning chase but it's still uncertain for now.

Not the best of pics being taken from the phone camera instead of my usual D3100 which is in the repair-shop, but they're evident.

Only 501 days left to see another Partial Eclipse from the UK if you missed it this time 😄 2026 is a great chance for Europe with Totality passing through Western Iceland and mainland Spain.

Someone's been doing a sunshine-dance here as it was overcast all morning and I thought for sure today was going to be a "no-show", on a whim I headed out into the garden with the D3100 and there it was at 11:38am 😄 sat24 has been interesting to look at too with the penumbral shadow of the moon darkening the skies of the N.Atlantic.

I take that back, on a whim I had a wander into the garden just to check on the clouds and they've thinned briefly enough to see Partiality at 11:38am from here 😄

It's sods-law that after a week of mornings with clear skies the weather decides to throw a persistent overcast cloud-layer just as the Partial Eclipse got underway, although looking at sat24 it's interesting to see a bit of darkness towards the north Atlantic despite the Eclipse only being Annular. From here my best view of it is on Stellarium.

Its tragic for anyone and their family caught out by a rogue lightning strike with fatal consequences, i'm always aware of the dangers being a MLTE trainee and ultra-race volunteer so i'm always risk-assessing based on observations around me with the option to 'bail' home that's only a minute or two away. Being trapped in the 'bears cage' aka middle of the lightning core isn't something i'd go out of my way to experience especially knowing how powerful a lightning strike actually is (we have 2 large oak tree's closer than a 30 second walk away from the drive which often get hit) and photograph

I remember last year's Supercell being in the direct line of it, the day was so humid similar to the type of climate you'd normally find in Florida that sporadic showers kept coming/going throughout the day but there was still a cap in place so they didn't equate to much. It wasn't until midnight'ish when the action began after the storms across Liverpool and the Isle of Man had moved north, standing out on the open field I was originally hoping to photograph NLCs with the tops of the Anvils over Lancs being illuminated by lightning but instead my attention was focused directly upwards and not

A interesting day weather wise with wall-to-wall blue skies in the morning, followed by a little convection over the hills at lunch time and now clouding over completely as isolated patches of drizzle begin moving their way eastwards from Cheshire. I made the best of the day by heading out around the usual Bleaklow and Higher Shelf Moor area along with the crowds having the same idea, it still boggles my mind how so many people were going up and clueless as to where they were going and to just how far the B29 wreck-site is from the road especially when they have little kids and carrying no map

I'm reminded of last year around mid-June where we had a convective setup but nothing happened all day except for the occasional light-shower in the afternoon, it wasn't until 11pm before the clouds 'exploded' and the NW had one of the best storms in recent years. I prefer late evening storms this time of year as not only does it help photographic-wise but if it's a miss there's still somewhat of a guarantee (given my height asl and viewing location) that i'll at least see a few distant flickers if the skies aren't too obscured.

23.3'c max in Buxton yesterday and hopefully later on today there's a good storm or two rolling up from the Midlands for a long-awaited early evening storm, personally anything above 20'c and I start struggling so i've kept in most of the day away from the heat, high UV levels, and pollen. I learnt my lesson in Turkey whilst watching the 2006 Eclipse and completely unaware of how much UV the skin was absorbing which ended up in me having burns & blisters for a good month afterwards.