Storms and Convective Discussion - 20th April 2019 onwards

[Mapantz]

I'm not sure I buy in to a decline of thunder days, because it's not much of fixed figure in the first place.

Despite what others have said, I remember stretches in both the 80's and 90's that didn't see any storms here. I do remember a few good ones, of course. I think a lot of it boils down to having model data at our disposal. How many times have we looked at them and they've showed something outrageous? Right down to a few days before, and nothing comes of it.. Back in the 70's 80's and 90's we had nothing to look for and so there was no such thing as a downgrade. All we relied on was a TV forecast a few nights before, or on the day.

[Raindrops]

I actually enjoyed the show through the night. I live miles away from the event. It was the first time I sat down and tracked Thunderstorms that were not heading my direction. I seen it as an advantage to help me understand that little bit more about our weather.

[stevofunnelcl]

i remember them too, going back over the past. The real plume, had no trouble getting storms here. It was the 1980's, so no mobile phone video footage, but my long term memory is good. I remember some real crackers, daytime and night-time. I have memories of a couple times, when the thunder would be rumbling pretty much all night.

Especially remember, seeing the movie 'alien' for the very first time, and a storm arrived from the south, during the movie, and by the end of the movie, there must have been strikes nearly overhead. The furniture in the house actually shook. Then the storm rumbled on for hours into the night. Maybe it was a 'thunder train' - where they line up

[Joey.G]

It would be interesting to get a real statistical analysis of the decline in the thunder over the past decade or so.. I think its beyond doubt that its a fact.. and see if it can be related/correlated to any other climactic shift. Mean jetstream positions, SSTs, the effect of the freshwater from ice cap melt on the gulf stream.. Kinda makes me want to go back to university.. Any meteorology students on here?! 

Below is a graphic from a paper by Gray & Marshall showing the track of all MCS' in the UK between 1981 and 1997.I think its probably been on here before. Would be fantastic to see a similar paper covering the period 2001 to 2017.. Even just the number of cases in the same period would be instructive. 

[James1979]

One for the decline in thunder days thread as well but this hugging the continent coastline that is so common now - someone suggested years ago that it was the disparity in temperatures causing a sort of mini jet stream steering the storms along the warm continent- could that be a real possibility? France with such hot temps compared to UK, kind of makes sense to me.

Without doubt though there has been a significant decline - the 80s and 90s had far more storms imby (Essex 38 years and now cambs). It happens so often now that I'm very convinced its climate change- same can be said for the decline in snow in winter, with exceptions to the new rule of course. Shame.

[Supacell]

Where it is okay to drift off topic sometimes as this section of the forums is quite relaxed, it does seem as if this thread has de-railed into something that we already have another thread for. Please can we try and keep this thread to discussing future and current convective opportunities and post about the decline in thunderstorms over here. Thanks

That being said, I am closing this thread shortly as it is getting a little long, and opening a new one.

 

 

[IanR]

8 minutes ago, Mapantz said:

I'm not sure I buy in to a decline of thunder days, because it's not much of fixed figure in the first place.

Despite what others have said, I remember stretches in both the 80's and 90's that didn't see any storms here. I do remember a few good ones, of course. I think a lot of it boils down to having model data at our disposal. How many times have we looked at them and they've showed something outrageous? Right down to a few days before, and nothing comes of it.. Back in the 70's 80's and 90's we had nothing to look for and so there was no such thing as a downgrade. All we relied on was a TV forecast a few nights before, or on the day.

I think thats part of it, regarding model watching , but there still has been a decline too,   When the forecasts mentioned thunder ,60 percent or more the time you got thunder  , even when you didn't you got distant lightning,  if the storms were forecast in you area for the night time , 

 

When thunder is mentioned in forecasts now I dismiss it . especially  the terms 'thundery rain' ,  'odd rumble of thunder' and 'thundery at times'   It rarely comes to pass , well maybe 5 percent success rate at best

[Supacell]

New thread here