Convective Potential - June 13Th >>>>

[Paul Sherman]

Perhaps they need to spend some time in the Field Harry ??

Even if it means them going to France or the Near Continant to study Storms as ours are not frequent enough, look at how Vortex2 still go out regulary and they know vastly more than our Met Office who solely rely on there supposed best computer in the world. The best way to understand Thunderstorms and the environment they rely on is not from a Computer Model but somehow I dont think our government will give over any money for the studies like the US Has given $12 Million to the SPC.

Dont get me wrong the SPC Had some shockers this year as well, so I am not bashing the METO solely but I do wonder if the reliance on computers has made us the consumer get worse forecasts over the last 20-30 years, put it this way they are no better than they were in the 80's

Paul S

[The PIT]

Got to admit for our area at least there was no need for a warning. The rain never got above moderate and as for humdingers well god knows what a severe storm is called by Carol K.

[UKVoodoo]

But if they hadnt predicted any storms yesterday would we not also be berating them now...they have to plan for the worst case scenario to tell/warn the general public not accomodate for us storm chasers

We should know better then that

[Thundery wintry showers]

Cracking storms here last night lasted a good couple of hours. Power cuts and everything! All very exciting!

Lincoln has got to be up there with the main contenders for "thunderstorm capital of Britain".

As for the forecasts, as we've often seen, forecast models often downgrade snow and thunder potential at the last moment and that may well sometimes catch the MetO and BBC out. There is also a tendency to overstate potential for disruptive weather to encourage more preparedness, though they have to be careful to avoid overdoing that as it can come across as "crying wolf". I don't think forecasts are any worse in terms of accuracy than 20-30 years ago, the main problem is the Beeb encouraging a dumbing down of the presentation style, with a minimum of detail and a maximum of reassuring viewers about "good" weather.

The storm chances downgraded on the GFS yesterday so if the MetO's own model did the same it's understandable in this case that they would overdo it.

[r6 steve]

there are some very good looking towering clouds down here in the solent how high they can go im not too sure

[Harry]

Perhaps they need to spend some time in the Field Harry ??

Even if it means them going to France or the Near Continant to study Storms as ours are not frequent enough, look at how Vortex2 still go out regulary and they know vastly more than our Met Office who solely rely on there supposed best computer in the world. The best way to understand Thunderstorms and the environment they rely on is not from a Computer Model but somehow I dont think our government will give over any money for the studies like the US Has given $12 Million to the SPC.

Dont get me wrong the SPC Had some shockers this year as well, so I am not bashing the METO solely but I do wonder if the reliance on computers has made us the consumer get worse forecasts over the last 20-30 years, put it this way they are no better than they were in the 80's

Paul S

Totally agree Paul - though that said, the MetO are vastly more superior to the Weather Channel.... remember that day???

Weather forecast at midday (or there abouts) on Thursday 6th May for NE Kansas on the Weather Channel..."Weather forecast, sunny, warm, temperatures of 84F - tonight, clear, increasingly turning partly cloudy, winds swinging to the NW, turning cooler, lows 54F"...this forecast was either side of the "EXCLUSIVE"!! Vortex 2 coverage, who stated they were chasing in N Kansas for potential discreet supercells and the potential for widespread severe thunderstorm activity near the Kansas/Nebraska border....you couldn't make it up - straight after the Vortex 2 coverage they went back to a forecast of sunny conditions turning cooler by nightfall, with no mention of showers let alone 300 mile diameter severe MCS flanked by discreet supercells :lol:

Seriously though, the MetO really do need to vastly improve their convective forecasts...for snow, IMO they are very reliable. For flooding events, they are also reliable (remember the Cumbria floods - they nailed that days in advance!!) - yet thunderstorms?? Dear oh dear! I am surprised they don't have a forum based system like NW where they tap in to "chasers" and general storm enthusiasts, in order to help them form their forecasts and for issuing warnings! It would be far better than what they have at the moment!!

Off out now to the Windsor races with Clients - shame there wont be storms too, but never mind!!

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think the MetO might have suffered to some degree from "rationalisation", getting rid of most of the Weather Centres and focusing everything in Exeter. One risk of that is losing the detailed "local climate" knowledge that some forecasters within the regional weather centres will have had.

In addition the computerisation of weather forecasting may have gone a bit too far in some areas with the human input (which could help with thunderstorm predictions) playing too small a role. After all, the FAX charts- the only ones with major human input- are still often more accurate than any of the raw model outputs to T+120.

[Guest]

Rather doom-like skies here at present  :lol:

[ZONE 51]

hi everyone what an exciting read last night on here ( on mobile) if only the storms developed for us down here.

anyway to this day, an amazing sat image here , aline of intense downpours forming looks amazing on the sat these cells!

its developing a Convergence line

Edited June 15, 2010 by Coast

[Mad Murdoch]

its developing a Convergence line

I noticed that.. Also Isle of wight lightning also picking up a bit of activity in france now..

http://www.isleofwightweather.co.uk/live_storm_data.htm

[ZONE 51]

precipitation loop jumping ahead abit play/watch loop and look at ppn heading toward se england wednesday night/into thurs thundery kent clipper? or maybe more inland ? ( will it wont it )

[Noctilucid]

Had a rapidly developing shower pass over earlier, went very black for a while but I thought nothing of it.

[Costa Del Fal]

Im not disappointed after yesterday at all and i could tell a few were expecting/getting excited far too much unfortunately.

Its going to be quiet for some time unfortunately. If this pattern was to last then this would be my worst thundery year by far but im sure there are plenty of surprises in the line up as these things often pop up last minute.

As soon as those showers were dying out i could tell it was game over last night. Much the opposite of the BBC who expected them to last well.

[r6 steve]

we have had a few showers im underneath directly all that beautiful white dense clouds but im still not hopeful for anything but showers

[Mesoscale]

yes the rest of the week looks dire, some very dark clouds passsing me into london earlier looked pretty nasty for a while but i didn't recieve one drop! Last night all we got was a light shower before i passed out for the night!

According to NASA oxfordshire, northhamptonshire and milton keynes have the most lightning strikes per Square mile in the uk with northhampton, oxford and milton keynes forming a triangle for the lightning activity. measured from 1995 to 2003.

You cant see it on this map here but on the google maps version you can see it quite clearly which you can find here but you have to download google maps to view it.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Mesodiscussion

[Thundery wintry showers]

A pretty interesting map- which suggests that lightning activity over Lincoln must have been lower over 1995-2003 than subsequently, as it isn't close to being the thunderstorm capital of Britain on that map. The Norwich area isn't far behind the aforementioned "triangle" though. Note that most of continental Europe gets more lightning than the UK as we might expect.

It's interesting that E Scotland comes out with higher values than W Scotland despite the latter having a slightly higher mean frequency of thunder-days- illustrating, perhaps, that most of western Scotland's storms are weak Atlantic-driven events whereas east Scotland is more prone to bigger storms developing to the south and south-west and heading across.

[dogs32]

yes the rest of the week looks dire, some very dark clouds passsing me into london earlier looked pretty nasty for a while but i didn't recieve one drop! Last night all we got was a light shower before i passed out for the night!

According to NASA oxfordshire, northhamptonshire and milton keynes have the most lightning strikes per Square mile in the uk with northhampton, oxford and milton keynes forming a triangle for the lightning activity. measured from 1995 to 2003.

You cant see it on this map here but on the google maps version you can see it quite clearly which you can find here but you have to download google maps to view it.

excellent info...nice one

[Coast]

A pretty interesting map- which suggests that lightning activity over Lincoln must have been lower over 1995-2003 than subsequently, as it isn't close to being the thunderstorm capital of Britain on that map.

Another way of looking at things - this map from TORRO:

You can also look at historical lightning strike frequency, month by month, here on the Met O site.

Interesting to see how many strikes fall in the English Channel!!

[Thundery wintry showers]

That TORRO map looks rather more likely, with that "finger" extending out around Lincolnshire.

I, too, find those MetO lightning maps very interesting- I would've expected the Channel to see rather less lightning than it does, presumably a lot of the summer strikes are imports from northern France.

[Coast]

I would've expected the Channel to see rather less lightning than it does, presumably a lot of the summer strikes are imports from northern France.

That rarely seem to get ashore here........ :lol:

[staplehurst]

So according to the TORRO map I should get about 15/16 days of thunder each year. Last year I recorded 9.

[Thundery wintry showers]

There is considerable variability either side of the mean. I checked the frequency of thunder days at Norwich Weather Centre on Tutiempo.net from 1993 to 2005, and annual frequencies varied between 8 days and 27 days.

I think that, including the ones I saw and reports from the occasions while I was away, UEA had 16 thunder days in 2008, and 13 in 2009 (July and August 2009 had more storms over Norfolk than Kent).

I think the TORRO map, albeit to a lesser extent than the MetO's equivalent, may suffer from being a bit generalised due to the sparseness of coverage- earlier analysis for instance pointed to localised areas of high frequency in some upland western areas (notably NE of Manchester) which don't show up on these maps. But I think apart from that the values look about right, e.g. 15/16 days for East Anglia & Kent, 7/8 days for Lancaster and Tyneside. Hopefully we'll see more detailed maps coming out in a decade's time when the Met Office reaches 30 years of ATD data.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Thundery wintry showers

[ZONE 51]

shrs look to develop across parts of scotland/scottish borders/northern england/ireland on wednesday maybe some thunder.

convergence lines? gfs 12z gives a risk of thunder for parts.

i know not much about for a while.........................................................but looking for any hint of thunder/storms for us

Edited June 15, 2010 by nimbilus

[Stuart]

now that Good News but will that come off

[ZONE 51]

most likely just some showers..