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Storm and Convective Discussion 10th June Onwards


The PIT

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Posted
  • Location: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. 108.7m ASL
  • Location: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. 108.7m ASL

A lot of the storm action yesterday consisted of frequent and at times very loud thunder but most of the lightning was not visible. I take it that the storms therefore must have been elevated. I know you can get elevated supercells and I think this would be a likely description of what I witnessed yesterday. This could also explain the lack of tornado activity as surface based activity was rather lacking and I do not think tornadoes can occur from elevated storms, even if they are rotating. Rain, winds, hail and thunder were all in abundance though. Some of the rain yesterday was tropical and lots of flooding, especially around Nottinghamshire.

 

Please feel free to correct me if my ideas are incorrect regarding elevated supercells and tornado activity.

 

Pretty sure Reed Timmer shot a video the other year of a LP super cell that produced a tornado a couple of years ago in Colorado that had a lower cloud base starting around 7500-8000ft, so it's possible to get tornadic activity from high based super cells.

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Posted
  • Location: West Ipswich, Suffolk
  • Location: West Ipswich, Suffolk

Well wat a let down the last few weeks have been. Only had one flash of lightning and rumble of thunder. So nothing realy to get me out of the NSC. I am hoping to get a good light show when i go to meorca for 2 weeks. Anyone one know what there storm chances there are??

The main storm season for the islands is September/October which is why i went for September in Majorca again this year, last time i went in 2012 they'd had a heatwave since may and after the first week it broke with a vengance. The lightning was all straight line CG's one of which is my profile photo, the thunder was like i've never heard before, it was just like the boom of a cannon, short and sharp and echoing through the mountains, hail was the size of 50p pieces and the wind on the GF was really nasty, within minutes of it hitting everywhere was flooding, water was running like a river through the front door of our hotel and straight out the back of the restaurant into the pool area, they did really well with the clean up because by the next morning you wouldn't have known any different. The storm lasted about an hour and after you could see smoke coming from different positions in the hills where lightning had started fires in the bush. Of all the storms i've ever seen that one was without doubt the best.

 

Best of luck to you, i hope it happens for you  

Edited by Chris101
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Posted
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk
  • Weather Preferences: Snow,snow,snow!! Ooh and sunny,warm days!!!
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk

Me and my better half today!

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Posted
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk
  • Weather Preferences: Snow,snow,snow!! Ooh and sunny,warm days!!!
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk

Lol the woman legging it doen the street at the end made me laugh!

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Posted
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk
  • Weather Preferences: Snow,snow,snow!! Ooh and sunny,warm days!!!
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk

Thanks!! Really enjoyed doing it,, great storm! I have some pics in gallery and in this thread somewhere of the lightening from the vid, the photos alot better than on the vid.

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Posted
  • Location: Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 110m
  • Location: Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 110m

Me and my better half today! 

God i love the northern accent! Sounds just like everyone from rahnd ere'! 

 

Great video 

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Posted
  • Location: East Hull, East Yorkshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm and stormy.
  • Location: East Hull, East Yorkshire

Me and my better half today!http://youtu.be/q-g4PSD6bcE

 

Filming each other and missing the lightning  :rofl:   Enjoyed watching that!  :good:

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Posted
  • Location: Pemberton, Wigan, 54 M ASL. 53.53,-2.67
  • Weather Preferences: Winter - snow, Irish sea convection. Summer - thunderstorms, hot sunny days
  • Location: Pemberton, Wigan, 54 M ASL. 53.53,-2.67

Well yesterday was the most successful day for storms this year. It was a lovely sunny morning, but things started to happen at around 14:00 as a small thundery shower past to the South-east giving a few good rumbles and some slight rain. Then, the sun came out again and increased surface heating, and showers began to move up from Wales. At 15:50 it began to rain torrentially. This cell seemd to have lost all its electrical activity over the bay, but as it moved inland over Crosby, it gave a IC strike right overhead. It began to rain insanely heavy, although the heaviest of the rain passed to the south-east. Five minutes past, with me standing there going "give us a CG, come on, a CG now". The cell duly obliged and shot a positive CG about 100 m away. As you can imagine, the thunder was extremely explosive, with that classic sound of a positive CG with explosive bangs after the initial crack. After a load more strikes, but no more positive ones, the cell began to move away to the north east and the sun came out again. More cells past from south-east to north-east during the evening, and I could hear the great Warrington storm far away in the distance with its deep booming thunder. So only 1 overhead storm yesterday, but what a storm!

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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Weather Preferences: warehamwx.co.uk
  • Location: Dorset

I'm glad that high pressure is going to settle everything down now, I need to regroup, fed up of the disappointment.

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Posted
  • Location: King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Hot and Thundery, Cold and Snowy
  • Location: King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

How can you tell the difference between a +/- strike.....?

A +CG strike originates much higher up in the anvil/cloud and will produce the groundshaking bomb like thunder. It is much much more powerful than a - strike. Im sure one of the more advanced meteorologists on here such as the two Nicks will be able to fill you in on this :)
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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Weather Preferences: warehamwx.co.uk
  • Location: Dorset

How can you tell the difference between a +/- strike.....?

My personal view is that it is almost impossible to tell from the naked eye. Negative CG is the most common- 95% of all strikes, so it's rarer than you think to catch a positive one, that's why they have detectors to tell the difference between them. Edited by Mapantz
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Posted
  • Location: Portlethen - Aberdeenshire
  • Location: Portlethen - Aberdeenshire

How can you tell the difference between a +/- strike.....?

I once read somewhere that + lightning is Pink in colour and far more dangerous.  - lightning is yellow or blue in colour and more common.

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Posted
  • Location: Leicester (LE3)
  • Location: Leicester (LE3)

A +CG strike originates much higher up in the anvil/cloud and will produce the groundshaking bomb like thunder. It is much much more powerful than a - strike. Im sure one of the more advanced meteorologists on here such as the two Nicks will be able to fill you in on this :)

 

 

My personal view is that it is almost impossible to tell from the naked eye. Negative CG is the most common- 95% of all strikes, so it's rarer than you think to catch a positive one, that's why they have detectors to tell the difference between them.

 

 

I once read somewhere that + lightning is Pink in colour and far more dangerous.  - lightning is yellow or blue in colour and more common.

Thanks chaps.... Just been on the interweb, and indeed there's lots of info on this, and as you say, difficult to tell the difference by human eye alone....

Reading about this subject has a strange effect on my fear of thunder/lightning, as well as understanding it better, it makes me more fearful of it!!! Doh!! Yet, excited about it.... I have over the last few years began to enjoy storms, as long as  they are at what I class as a safe distance away, say visible as well as hearable, around 5+ miles away in the day.... When they start to get any closer than that I get all sweaty, jittery, and fearful... & I am compelled to get as safe as possible... Luckily I don't live on a hill!!! In fact we used to have a couple of tallish factories around 40 yards away and that sort of settled me down a bit, but they were demolished around 2years ago and nothing replaced them, eeeek! That sort of worried me as they were taller than my house and well, you know, felt they  were a better target..rightly or wrongly.. Now someone is building student flats and there's a crane about 100 metres away and again I have a taller target around which makes me feel safer, is this the normal thoughts of someone scared of lightning/thunder??

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Posted
  • Location: Godalming
  • Weather Preferences: Plumes and streamers
  • Location: Godalming

Thanks chaps.... Just been on the interweb, and indeed there's lots of info on this, and as you say, difficult to tell the difference by human eye alone....Reading about this subject has a strange effect on my fear of thunder/lightning, as well as understanding it better, it makes me more fearful of it!!! Doh!! Yet, excited about it.... I have over the last few years began to enjoy storms, as long as  they are at what I class as a safe distance away, say visible as well as hearable, around 5+ miles away in the day.... When they start to get any closer than that I get all sweaty, jittery, and fearful... & I am compelled to get as safe as possible... Luckily I don't live on a hill!!! In fact we used to have a couple of tallish factories around 40 yards away and that sort of settled me down a bit, but they were demolished around 2years ago and nothing replaced them, eeeek! That sort of worried me as they were taller than my house and well, you know, felt they  were a better target..rightly or wrongly.. Now someone is building student flats and there's a crane about 100 metres away and again I have a taller target around which makes me feel safer, is this the normal thoughts of someone scared of lightning/thunder??

Sounds quite rational :-)Problem is with most things the media gets involved and makes rare or one-off events sound like they are far more likely than science would otherwise have you think.Do you know if there have ever been any CG strikes in your immediate area - eg: on your road?Last close strike for me was about 3 years ago in london. Think it struck a tree some way off. The thunder was so loud and we were all convinced the scaffolding on our building had been struck - but I'm sure we would have known had that been the case!
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Posted
  • Location: Templeglantine, west County Limerick, Ireland
  • Location: Templeglantine, west County Limerick, Ireland

My last close brush with lightning was 2005/6, summer - I was working at a garden centre in shepperton, a storm was brewing and I was standing in the carpark, when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up - I ran for the shop and turned to see a big pink flash hit a tree across the road - since then that's me hooked - not scared at all, more in awe.

 

A few flashes and rumbles here yesterday, more north of us, is that REALLY it for now lol

Edited by tara303
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Posted
  • Location: Godalming
  • Weather Preferences: Plumes and streamers
  • Location: Godalming

What I'm trying to say is you're probably being over-cautious!

But if it makes you feel safer there is nothing wrong with that.

I found a really good technique when I was young and storms were close by our house I said to myself to try and not feel fear for 30 seconds, and keep doing that at intervals. The moment you get calm it sort of propagates and you will feel less anxious and hopefully can enjoy the show a bit!

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Posted
  • Location: Leicester (LE3)
  • Location: Leicester (LE3)

Sounds quite rational :-)Problem is with most things the media gets involved and makes rare or one-off events sound like they are far more likely than science would otherwise have you think.Do you know if there have ever been any CG strikes in your immediate area - eg: on your road?Last close strike for me was about 3 years ago in london. Think it struck a tree some way off. The thunder was so loud and we were all convinced the scaffolding on our building had been struck - but I'm sure we would have known had that been the case!

Hi, not aware of anything that close, i've lived here since 1993.. Do all lightning strikes hit something? Or can they just flash without any earthing, not Inc cloud to cloud?

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Posted
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk
  • Weather Preferences: Snow,snow,snow!! Ooh and sunny,warm days!!!
  • Location: Leyland,Lancs, uk

God i love the northern accent! Sounds just like everyone from rahnd ere'!  Great video

Filming each other and missing the lightning  :rofl:   Enjoyed watching that!  :good:

Lol chezweather, i hate my accent! Obviously im the Lancs one and hes the Barnsley yorkshire wun! LolYes, we kept on doing that, filming each other or turning the cam off at the wrong time! LolWell gorgeous sunny day here, white clouds at times but no sign of thundery activity, cant complain at 5 days worth 3 times a day!
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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Weather Preferences: warehamwx.co.uk
  • Location: Dorset

I remember reading an article by the late Tim Samaras, it mentioned that positive CG strikes were possible precursors to tornadic development.

Just found this on NOAA

Positive CG - A CG flash that delivers positive charge to the ground, as opposed to the more common negative charge. Positive CGs have been found to occur more frequently in some severe thunderstorms. Their occurrence is detectable by most lightning detection networks, but visually it is not considered possible to distinguish between a positive CG and a negative CG. (Some claim to have observed a relationship between staccato lightning and positive CGs, but this relationship is as yet unproven.)

Edited by Mapantz
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