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The decline in thunder days.


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Posted
  • Location: Shrewsbury
  • Location: Shrewsbury

Today has shown the post 2006 effect clearly; front coming over, humid air in place, boring rain in the west yet thunder in the east Midlands and southeast. Before 2006 there would have been storms all over today.

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

Today has shown the post 2006 effect clearly; front coming over, humid air in place, boring rain in the west yet thunder in the east Midlands and southeast. Before 2006 there would have been storms all over today.

 

I am at a loss to understand how you arrive at that conclusion from what you state. The atmosphere is far more complex, unless you test each parameter today with any in 2006 then no one can be sure.

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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

A report was made by Dr Evald Septer of the Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory, Irkutsk in the Meteorologische Zeitschrift of June 1926 on the connection between the relative number of sunspots and the frequency of thunderstorms in Siberia.

The annual average of the number of days with thunder at 229 stations between latitudes 71N and 43N and longitudes of 59.5 and 149.5E over a period of 37 years from 1888 to 1924. This period included three maxima and four minima.

The means of nine years about the three maxima and the twelve years grouped about the four minima gave

Sunspot maxima: 73.0

Thunderstorms: 18.4

Sunspot minima: 7.1

Thunderstorms: 10.6

A correlation coefficient of +0.88

Regress equation: number of thunderstorms = 10.4 + 0.11 (relative sunspot number)

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Posted
  • Location: Shrewsbury
  • Location: Shrewsbury

I am at a loss to understand how you arrive at that conclusion from what you state. The atmosphere is far more complex, unless you test each parameter today with any in 2006 then no one can be sure.

Just the general feel of the weather. Earlier today was very reminiscent of the thundery days we had in August 2004, albeit somewhat cooler: unsettled air, high humidity, intermittent heavy showers yet it didn't go bang till it got down Warwickshire way. It never seems to kick off in these scenarios on the western side any more.

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Posted
  • Location: Wigan
  • Location: Wigan

the decreasing solar/sunspot activity is probably the likely and sensible explanation,

 

   increasing contrails may just have a  small negligible affect on the situation, or not

Edited by IanR
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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

Another month rare for thunder here is December. I can not recall one December thunderstorm. Another one is how many people recall a thunderstorm on Christmas Day? I think a few locations may have had one on Christmas Day 1999. I can't recall once hearing thunder on Christmas Day.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

The best storm here, in the last few years, must have been on January 3, 2014; strobe lightning and a few cm of lying hail. There was T&L in Farnborough on Xmas morning 2012, too.

Edited by Ed Stone
wrong year!
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Posted
  • Location: Rotherhithe, 5.8M ASL
  • Location: Rotherhithe, 5.8M ASL

The best storm here, in the last few years, must have been on January 3, 2014; strobe lightning and a few cm of lying hail. There was T&L in Farnborough on Xmas morning 2012, too.

Oh yes I seem to recall one of the winter months being thundery - 2013 was a superb year for T/storms.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Little USA (South East)still does well for storms it's the rest of the country that's starting to forget what a thunderstorm looks like

Maybe so, but long-term statistics might prove you wrong: what goes around comes around?

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Posted
  • Location: Chelmsford
  • Weather Preferences: Hot and dry summers with big thunderstorms.
  • Location: Chelmsford

Living in the southeast (Chelmsford), I must confess that thunderstorms have reduced although last year saw some absolute crackers, we had three days that followed a hot spell (can't remember dates but sometime in early July). One was on Thursday and the second followed on Friday night and also we had a memorable storm on the Sunday after and all them days had high temperatures (Friday was 32c for example). We ideally need an intense plume with an Atlantic trough (similar to what the GEM model suggest tonight) to get widespread severe storms.

I do agree though that there has been a reduction even here in the southeast!

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Posted
  • Location: Wigan
  • Location: Wigan

could the possible slowing of the gulf stream be another factor? 

 

climate change predicted the uk would get warmer and have more tropical like flash floods /thunderstorms,  the reality  of climate change is going to be different imo,  a possible cooling trend with changes in the atlantic and jet stream, storms becoming even rarer?  

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Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset

February has to take first place for rarest occurrence of thunder here. Only tend to get thunder here in unstable westerly airstreams which are very rare during February. These are the airstreams that often bring thunder to places near the coasts due to cold air / warmish sea.

 

I think the last thunder free September here was 2007. Even 2009 managed it on the 01st.

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddington, Buckinghamshire
  • Weather Preferences: Winter: Cold & Snowy, Summer: Just not hot
  • Location: Cheddington, Buckinghamshire

could the possible slowing of the gulf stream be another factor? 

 

climate change predicted the uk would get warmer and have more tropical like flash floods /thunderstorms,  the reality  of climate change is going to be different imo,  a possible cooling trend with changes in the atlantic and jet stream, storms becoming even rarer?  

 

The slowing of the gulf stream has been shown to be pretty much negligible.

 

I still think people are looking back at history with rose-tinted specs in terms of thunderstorms.

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Posted
  • Location: Wigan
  • Location: Wigan

The slowing of the gulf stream has been shown to be pretty much negligible.

 

I still think people are looking back at history with rose-tinted specs in terms of thunderstorms.

I dont ,   there have been stats posted to show the the last fews years have seen a reduction in thunder days in the nw, it could be a blip, but last year there were only 2 days here the least I can remember,  ,  this year 0 so far,  a new record for this stage in the year,

 

 chance next week, but not holding my breath

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

 

 

I still think people are looking back at history with rose-tinted specs in terms of thunderstorms.

I tend to agree, Nick. I can recall the mid-1970s, when it seemed that snow all all-but gone extinct' a five-year window of nothingness seemed a very long time back then, to a teenager; that gap (along other things :D ) has shriveled away with time.

 

I think that the same thing might be happening with thunder-days; we tend to see extremely active years as a benchmark: a benchmark that's only very rarely reached? :D

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

Does thunder/lightning have to come from big thunder clouds? Do the smaller events, say the thundery shower, 1 clap and its over type of event be generated in just large rain bearing clouds and not always the big cumulonimbus anvils? Pehaps if that's the case, were only getting the thundery shower events and not full blown thunder cloud events in more recent years?

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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

 

I still think people are looking back at history with rose-tinted specs in terms of thunderstorms.

Normally I buy that especially when it comes to remembering summers and winters of youth etc, however storms around this neck of the woods have become rare beasts compared to the 1990s. I remember one day during the summer of 1991 when we had two thunderstorms and a third one passed by just to the south during that day. At the moment, we are struggling to hear just a single rumble of thunder. Thunder day values don't really tell you much on their own other than thunder heard was that day. They don't tell you how many times you heard thunder that day. It could be a single thunderclap or hundreds.

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Posted
  • Location: Russells Hall, Dudley, West Midlands
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, hot sunshine and snowstorms
  • Location: Russells Hall, Dudley, West Midlands

In order to do a proper investigation (baring in mind I am not meteorologically minded) do we not need to set parameters to figure out what constitutes a classic thunderstorm. Are people classing a thunderstorm as 20 minutes of rain with a couple of rumbles or are we thinking storms that last an hour plus with frequent lightning and thunder. In my opinion you cannot investigate until you make that distinction between widespread thunderstorms or thundery showers. Then working out the conditions that produce those conditions on what, if anything is missing and altimately why those aspects are missing.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

I think I remember reading a MetO publication that put 30 minutes' duration as the longevity limit for thunderstorms? That would put a 29 minute deluge, with thunder, into the 'thundery shower' category. John Holmes might, of course, know better? :D

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Posted
  • Location: NW LONDON
  • Weather Preferences: Sun, sleet, Snow
  • Location: NW LONDON

I had a thunderstorm in 2009, that has been it really, the rest have been pretty pathetic attempts that are over before they have even started. :D

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Posted
  • Location: The North Kent countryside
  • Weather Preferences: Hot summers, snowy winters and thunderstorms!
  • Location: The North Kent countryside

In order to do a proper investigation (baring in mind I am not meteorologically minded) do we not need to set parameters to figure out what constitutes a classic thunderstorm. Are people classing a thunderstorm as 20 minutes of rain with a couple of rumbles or are we thinking storms that last an hour plus with frequent lightning and thunder. In my opinion you cannot investigate until you make that distinction between widespread thunderstorms or thundery showers. Then working out the conditions that produce those conditions on what, if anything is missing and altimately why those aspects are missing.

 

For me the thing that has really disappeared in what you describe is not the former, but the latter along with those all night MCS have all but gone.

 

I think that's what a lot of people are referring to.

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Posted
  • Location: Wigan
  • Location: Wigan

synoptics like the ones forecast for the coming week would have guaranteed a good smattering of thundery activity for many, a decade or three ago

 

but i have a gut feeling that modern trend of it all going east near the realistic time is going to happen again,  why is it always the case now, kent clipper seems the new buzzwords when a thundery plume happens   

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