Jump to content
Snow?
Local
Radar
Cold?
IGNORED

Summer Storms - Lightning Strike Maps


Paul

Recommended Posts

Posted
  • Location: Aviemore
  • Location: Aviemore

It's been a pretty stormy summer compared with recent years, but as it's all about local differences with some places seeing multiple storms, and in fact multiple storm days, others seeing nothing.

The strike maps (taken from the ATD lightning detection) tell the story!

June

post-2-0-17722100-1346669547_thumb.png

July

post-2-0-00268800-1346669545_thumb.png

August

post-2-0-40458700-1346669543_thumb.png

Summer Overall

post-2-0-49611800-1346669550_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Carlisle, Cumbria
  • Weather Preferences: Atlantic storms, severe gales, blowing snow and frost :)
  • Location: Carlisle, Cumbria

Loving the maps Paul, certainly an excellent season for storms for lots of locations around the UK... Unfortunately I seem to be in the sparse white area over West Cumbria :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Longwell Green, near Bristol
  • Weather Preferences: Storms, Gales, frost, fog & snow
  • Location: Longwell Green, near Bristol

Looks like the best areas this year have been South Wales, up through the Midlands and into Eastern England!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: South East UK
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms/squalls/hoar-frost/mist
  • Location: South East UK

Last year there were 8 thunder days here, this year its up to 18 at the moment, the storms around Leicester were unusual with hail of H8 intensity, this happens maybe every 50yrs+....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

A really great graphic way to illustrate the storms of this Summer and how many of them developed in Wales and went North Eastwards through the Midlands and into the Humber estuary - ultimately into the North Sea (ringed in blue)

post-6667-0-21167500-1346671807_thumb.pn

For me, it also points to my local area (ringed green) and how we really did throw up a storm shield this year with hardly anything in the Channel or along the Sussex coastline.

Taking the general trend on those ATD charts, this MetO jet direction map of 18th July may give a clue as to why it all went the direction it did this Summer?

jetstream_01.jpg?w=510&h=184

http://metofficenews...tag/jet-stream/

General trend through July:

upper_level_wind_earlyjuly2012-v2.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Douglas, Isle of Man - 380ft/116m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Warm summers, cold winters.. How it should be!
  • Location: Douglas, Isle of Man - 380ft/116m ASL

Ha. Look at that great big white halo around the Isle of Man.. rolleyes.gif This time of year we are coming into now is generally best for big storms here. When the air temperature starts going lower than the air temperature above it. We'll see.... ph34r.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

great to see the whole summer and to some extent bears out the average number of thunderstorms shown on Met O maps.

Just one point Paul? Is it possible to darken the coastlines please as for eastern England it is a bit difficult to position places?

thanks if you can

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: East Devon
  • Location: East Devon

Very nice and Interesting maps there, shows the 28th June storms well. I notice the SW seems to be the area with the least strikes again. Then again I'm sure August had more strikes here, the 11th/12th had overnight mid-level storms with distant lightning to the west for a couple hours (though not that frequent) then one move overhead with strikes to my south in the channel then nearby then to my north. These don't seem to show on the map though with only a small storm centered a few miles north/NE of me on the 25th shown.

But I also remember those didn't show well on the Netweather radar ATD overlay, with just a few random strikes shown often 20-30 miles from any precip. It seemed to have a funny few hours.

Overall though it shows I was in one of the best areas in Devon/Cornwall, with the 3:30am storm on the 28th June having frequent lightning every few seconds at the most frequent, so into the hundreds overall (looks less on the map they were presumably on top of each other)

Edited by Stormmad26
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Wigan
  • Location: Wigan

interesting map, dispels the myth that the south east is the storm capital, its actually a certain swathe through the midlands , followed by the north east,, the north west of england surpisingly does not fare too bad either but west wales , devon and cornwall are poor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, storms and other extremes
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire

1 Thunderstorm this year here....happened a couple of weeks back and comprised of one flash and one rumble! Looks like we had some close-ish strikes in July though

Edited by CreweCold
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

dispels the myth that the south east is the storm capital

I could have done that without those very interesting charts this year, unfortunately....... rolleyes.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, storms and other extremes
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire

I could have done that without those very interesting charts this year, unfortunately....... rolleyes.gif

don't worry I'm in the same boat....I even have an 'x marks the spot' over my area on the overall summer strikes map. Now if that aint me being mocked, I don't know what is!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

don't worry I'm in the same boat....

I'm just imagining that white in my area is actually snow blanketing the ground this Winter nea.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, storms and other extremes
  • Location: Crewe, Cheshire

I'm just imagining that white in my area is actually snow blanketing the ground this Winter nea.gif

Well I'm currently suffering the most bland 18 month spell of weather I've ever known; if it continues then I guess it's going to preclude any snowfall this coming winter!

The thought of high pressure for another week or so fills me with dread too, I had a friend complaining he was on holiday stuck in the middle of a hurricane the other day. I told him, I'd quite happily swap places!

Edited by CreweCold
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Longwell Green, near Bristol
  • Weather Preferences: Storms, Gales, frost, fog & snow
  • Location: Longwell Green, near Bristol

It looks like the South West has done pretty poorly this year according to those charts too, yet I thought Devon & Dorset especially done pretty well!

Shows how much I know!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: South Gloucestershire BS35
  • Weather Preferences: Severe weather enthusiast
  • Location: South Gloucestershire BS35

I think this correlates well with the fact most storms this year were brought along from a SW'ly direction most of the time. This is probably why areas in the SW has little on the strike maps compared to those further NE. Sw areas brewed the storms.

For my area I did manage to get a decent enough storm or two but whats notable is the lack of continental imports. However with the synoptics experienced for the main bulk of summer, its hardly surprising.

Edited by Chris K
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted
  • Location: Christchurch, NZ
  • Weather Preferences: Many
  • Location: Christchurch, NZ

It's not too surprising for me that the strikes are orientated SW-NE along prevailing steering winds with the greatest concentration in the east, due mainly in my opinion to land track - the greater the time over land the stronger the storm. It's interesting to see that within that there have been particular locations that have been good at generating storms, the likes of Newport, Brecon Beacons, Waterford, The Pennines, Birmingham, the outer Dee/Mersey estuaries and others. The Beacons/Southeast Wales have been particularly good, including of course on June 28th.

Edited by Chris W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...