What Does A Plume Look Like?

[snowlover2009]

someone explained this before to me, but i couldn't understand it. i know its to do with thunderstorms and hot weather, but can anyone give me a description of it and a few charts maybe? i would like to watch out for them in some of the models.

[Derp Patrol]

I'll try my best to answer, although it may not be as good as other people's.

A plume is in other words a southerly wind, but people often call it a 'plume' as a short way of saying a 'Spanish plume' where warm/hot hair comes up from the south.

This setup usually brings the warmest temperatures, and in summer 30C is normally achieved in such a setup. Normally you would see low pressure or a trough (i'm not actually sure myself as I don't fully understand what a trough is) to the west of the UK dragging up southerly winds, and usually high pressure to the south east.

Notable plumes include the August 2003 heatwave, and also last year this is a good example which brought 32C to southern areas:

Someone else will have better examples and will be able to offer a better explanation, but hope this helps

[Stormyking]

This is actually really interesting i too wanted to know what a plume is, i knew it was like to do with warm or ery warm moist air pushing from the S or SE and it can bring Thunderstorms, But just needed to know as well of what it looked like on the charts, so Thankyou Rob and weather09 for the charts :lol:.

[Bottesford]

Plumes - the very best of British summer weather imo! Plenty of warm or hot weather, warm nights (yes I do love those!), abundant sunshine (albeit hazy sometimes) and good chance of thunderstorms too. Hope to see plenty of them May-September this year as they've been fairly lacking in recent years from what I remember.

The 850 charts show them up well like this one from August 2003:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/2003/Rrea00220030806.gif

Just looking at it makes me feel warm

[summer blizzard]

While the description is correct, those two charts posted do not show Spanish Plume.

To be honest, the difference between as Spanish Plume and a normal southerly is the thundery breakdown, which requires a chart similar to the one weather 09 posted, but with a more southerly draw, usually described at three fine days and a thunderstorm.

The chart below is a good example, though the draw is more from the Azores than Spain..

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2005/Rrea00120050526.gif

[dogs32]

someone explained this before to me, but i couldn't understand it. i know its to do with thunderstorms and hot weather, but can anyone give me a description of it and a few charts maybe? i would like to watch out for them in some of the models.

here is a excellent post by Nick.f explaining in great detail about ThunderStorms and The Spanish Plume

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/29497-a-guide-to-uk-thunderstorm-setups/

[Nick F]

A Spanish Plume is essentially where well mixed warm and moist air is lifted as it moves north over the high Spanish Plateau and as it moves further north towards UK and other parts of northern Europe, it forms an Elevated Mixed Layer or EML for short. This EML tends to form a capping inversion below its base - preventing parcels from rising from the surface - despite a heat low often forming in plumes, and wherever moist air pools in the boundary layer/surface layer large amounts of CAPE can form forming a 'loaded gun' scenario - particularly with heat aswell. When an upper trough moves in from the west, increasiingly cold air aloft tends will try to destabilise the plume and often a cold front will form and move in from the W or SW, the cap eventually breaks and thunderstorms break out - either in the elevated mixed layer leading to mid-level storms or at the surface along the cold front if there's sufficient moisture. Often though, air in the boundary layer/surface tends to be inherently too dry and continental in origin, so storms will often be rooted above the boundary layer/elevated much of the time in Spanish Plume set-ups.