Storms and convective discussion - 18th June 2020 onwards

[Summer Sun]

Day 1 Convective Outlook

VALID 06:00 UTC Sun 28 Jun 2020 - 05:59 UTC Mon 29 Jun 2020

ISSUED 06:09 UTC Sun 28 Jun 2020

ISSUED BY: Dan

Upper low near northeast Scotland at 06z Sunday will tend to swing anticlockwise in an almost full loop across northern and central Scotland during this forecast period. The net result is little overall change to the upper profile during this time, with cool air aloft combining with diurnal heating to generate some marginal CAPE where sufficient insolation occurs. Since longer spells of rain associated with a wrap-around occlusion are likely across Northern Ireland, northern England and much of Scotland at times, the more likely areas to see surface heating are southern Ireland across to central/southern Britain. However, increasingly dry mid-level air will overspread these areas, restricting the depth of convection such that despite showers developing the overall risk of lightning is very low (5-10%). A slightly higher risk may exist over East Anglia (10-15%) where the dry mid-level air arrives later in the day, but any lightning would likely be isolated at best.

Elsewhere, close to the low centre some insolation may occur over Caithness and Sutherland in the morning, shifting to the Grampian / Moray / Aberdeenshire region by the afternoon, which may aid in some more substantial CAPE (300-500 J/kg) and a greater risk of a few heavy showers developing in response to low-level convergence and orographic forcing. Consequently there could be a few sporadic lightning strikes in this area (20-25% chance). This very much depends on the shape of the surface low and position of frontal rain, which will hinder any deep convection from occurring if sufficient surface heating fails to materialise.

http://convectiveweather.co.uk/forecast.php?date=2020-06-28

 

[Supacell]

June 2020 has surpassed June 2016 and May 2018 to become the best month for storm chasing since I started chasing in 2004. This taking into account the number of storms and the quality of them.

[A Face like Thunder]

Today is the 8th anniversary of 'Thunder Thursday' or 'The Great Tyneside Storm'. I came to Newcastle for an Olympic event in August 2012 but was not there on 28th June 2012. I wish I had. Clips on YouTube. Now that was a storm!

[ChezWeather]

33 minutes ago, A Face like Thunder said:

Today is the 8th anniversary of 'Thunder Thursday' or 'The Great Tyneside Storm'. I came to Newcastle for an Olympic event in August 2012 but was not there on 28th June 2012. I wish I had. Clips on YouTube. Now that was a storm!

The true benchmark for UK storms! The 'Toon Monsoon' & Surface Based supercells over the midlands dropping a swathe of truly massive destructive hail, tornados and the most active lightning day certainly by the Netweather ATD record anyway. 

[NUT]

41 minutes ago, A Face like Thunder said:

Today is the 8th anniversary of 'Thunder Thursday' or 'The Great Tyneside Storm'. I came to Newcastle for an Olympic event in August 2012 but was not there on 28th June 2012. I wish I had. Clips on YouTube. Now that was a storm!

Convective weather (on their facebook page) got a little thing about the 28th June 2012 epic. They linked to a couple of very good articles about it. Might be worth checking them out

[Jamie M]

8 years ago today was the infamous June 2012 event,

Found a few videos on it. Cars dented, windows smashed in, multiple tornadoes. Amazing.

 

 

Someone filming from inside their car as its smashed to bits by golfball sized hail:

Last time that size hail happened here in Kent must of been July 2007. As much as I want to experience it, it'd be absolutely terrifying at the same time. Windows getting smashed in. Nuts.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Jamiee

[Zak M]

Quite a big rain shaft to my SE, no thunder heard

[Atmogenic]

5 hours ago, Jamiee said:

8 years ago today was the infamous June 2012 event,

I always remember that day from this video when it recently happened

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by Supacell
Removed long quote

[oliverek7]

5 hours ago, Jamiee said:

8 years ago today was the infamous June 2012 event,

What caused these storms to be so intense? Really interesting. Must have been some really tall clouds and strong updrafts to produce that size hail 

Edited June 28, 2020 by Supacell
Removed long quote

[MP-R]

For down here, 28th June is an important date because of 2005! 15 years since those monster storms moved through in the evening - what a show that was!

[Arnie Pie]

Line of possibility running through from SW to NE....Just to the N of Brum

 

[Sparkiee storm]

A line of Heavy showers just passed through, some quite torrential bursts in there with some large convective drops too, no thunder though.

[Supacell]

Thought I would put up a short write up about my storm chase from Friday, along with the video that I have now finally edited and uploaded.

Soon after midday I headed north from my location as I was of the thought that north of me would fair better with storms, my focus especially on Yorkshire. Unfortunately I had decided on north-east. I say unfortunately as it would, at least at first, be the areas directly north of me that got the strongest storms. As a severe storm moved through Sheffield, Barnsley and then Wakefield, I was near to Doncaster. I made an attempt to catch the storm by heading west along the M62, but I wanted to get ahead of it so I could get some footage without being stuck under rain. I headed north into Wetherby, then Harrogate and eventually Ripon in North Yorkshire but I just could not catch it up. It soon became clear that this storm was now moving slightly west of north and this was the killer blow that ensured I would never catch it up. As I drove in the direction of Leyburn I decided to stop and film the best I could get, which was a few flashes and rumbles on the eastern edge of the storm. The most active parts was many miles to my west, and moving away quickly.

Feeling a bit dejected, looking at the Yorkshire Dales to the west of me getting a hammering, I felt there was possibly one more chance for me. Some thunderstorms had started building in Lincolnshire and I knew the main area of instability was pushing east with time. I wondered if heading east towards the coast would pay off. I decided to take the risk and headed east. I had thought I may be able to intercept some storms moving through Hull, but they died out before crossing my path. By the time I reached Bridlington, my eastward limit without a boat, I could see an anvil occasionally flashing from a storm out to sea but unfortunately any storms on land had died out. I knew (thought) that today would go down as a disappointment and decided to have a walk along the cliffs above Sewerby (just north of Bridlington) before starting the 100 mile journey home. But soon I was seeing the odd flash to my south-east (slightly inland) but many miles away. Within minutes that odd flash had turned into fairly frequent flashes, and on radar a new storm appeared, and was moving north a few miles inland. I no longer wanted to head home, and instead I headed back inland as increasingly frequent flashes lit up the dusk sky to my south.

A few miles inland I stopped and was now seeing frequent flashes, and the odd nice bolt to my south. I would say there were around 10-15 flashes a minute. On checking the radar I could see I needed to be a little west of my location if I wanted to experience being in the storm, but the storm was moving fast and so leaving my viewing spot and heading west ran the risk of me missing the storm completely. I decided to take the risk, I headed westwards and pretty soon hit the rain. It was only a small storm spatially, so much so that through the rain I could see the moon shining just to my south.

I wanted to be ahead of the storm, and so I raced northwards, but the storm was moving too quickly to outpace it and so I eventually decided to stop and let the storm move directly over me. As it did there was a brief but very intense bout of strong winds and large hailstones (estimated the size of marble to grape size). For a couple of minutes I could see nothing, and my car was being hammered with hailstones. From inside the car the noise was loud, it sounded like my windscreen was going to crack but I was too excited over what I was seeing to think to much about that.

Within 5 minutes the hail and winds subsided and left just heavy rain. I decided to chase it in the direction of Filey, although I knew I couldn't catch it up. Instead I drove through flooding and drifts of hailstones as bright flashes of lightning lit the sky ahead of me. By the time I reached Filey the storm had long moved out to sea. The video is below, severe storm first appears at 23:55 into the video.

 

[East_England_Stormchaser91]

21 hours ago, Oliver Wyndham-lewis said:

What caused these storms to be so intense? Really interesting. Must have been some really tall clouds and strong updrafts to produce that size hail 

Basically, very warm air and incredibly high dew points on a S/SE backed flow at the surface undercutting a strong SW flow up above generating 50-60M/S DLS. Skyrocketing temperatures under a very clear sky to the SE managed to generate huge CAPE and added juice for the Midlands Supercells to tap into and become Surface Based, this increasing the updraft speed somewhat. Also, the cells were fairly discrete, meaning they had no other competition from storms that may have formed further East consuming all of the energy. 

I think the Newcastle storm may have been more elevated, as the conditions at the surface up there were quite temperate compared to down south. There was a decent EML above preceding the trough too, I believe. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by East_England_Stormchaser91

[matt111]

 

[Atmogenic]

So basically nowadays after the US has finished their tornado season, we start ours in the Summer 

[matt111]

5 minutes ago, Atmogenic said:

So basically nowadays after the US has finished their tornado season, we start ours in the Summer 

Have they even had a tornado season this year? 

[Atmogenic]

1 minute ago, matt111 said:

Have they even had a tornado season this year? 

yeah they have but i haven't really been following, i'm only subscribed to pecos hawk on youtube as the other storm chasing people seemed to stop uploading for years now, 

this was two months ago with one of the most dramatic tornado videos i've ever seen

 

[East_England_Stormchaser91]

13 minutes ago, matt111 said:

Have they even had a tornado season this year? 

The Dixie Alley has had the most activity I believe. The area from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama through to Georgia and N Florida. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by East_England_Stormchaser91

[matt111]

 

[Allseasons-Si]

 

[matt111]

 

[Gorky]

On 28/06/2020 at 20:28, Supacell said:

Thought I would put up a short write up about my storm chase from Friday, along with the video that I have now finally edited and uploaded.

Soon after midday I headed north from my location as I was of the thought that north of me would fair better with storms, my focus especially on Yorkshire. Unfortunately I had decided on north-east. I say unfortunately as it would, at least at first, be the areas directly north of me that got the strongest storms. As a severe storm moved through Sheffield, Barnsley and then Wakefield, I was near to Doncaster. I made an attempt to catch the storm by heading west along the M62, but I wanted to get ahead of it so I could get some footage without being stuck under rain. I headed north into Wetherby, then Harrogate and eventually Ripon in North Yorkshire but I just could not catch it up. It soon became clear that this storm was now moving slightly west of north and this was the killer blow that ensured I would never catch it up. As I drove in the direction of Leyburn I decided to stop and film the best I could get, which was a few flashes and rumbles on the eastern edge of the storm. The most active parts was many miles to my west, and moving away quickly.

Feeling a bit dejected, looking at the Yorkshire Dales to the west of me getting a hammering, I felt there was possibly one more chance for me. Some thunderstorms had started building in Lincolnshire and I knew the main area of instability was pushing east with time. I wondered if heading east towards the coast would pay off. I decided to take the risk and headed east. I had thought I may be able to intercept some storms moving through Hull, but they died out before crossing my path. By the time I reached Bridlington, my eastward limit without a boat, I could see an anvil occasionally flashing from a storm out to sea but unfortunately any storms on land had died out. I knew (thought) that today would go down as a disappointment and decided to have a walk along the cliffs above Sewerby (just north of Bridlington) before starting the 100 mile journey home. But soon I was seeing the odd flash to my south-east (slightly inland) but many miles away. Within minutes that odd flash had turned into fairly frequent flashes, and on radar a new storm appeared, and was moving north a few miles inland. I no longer wanted to head home, and instead I headed back inland as increasingly frequent flashes lit up the dusk sky to my south.

A few miles inland I stopped and was now seeing frequent flashes, and the odd nice bolt to my south. I would say there were around 10-15 flashes a minute. On checking the radar I could see I needed to be a little west of my location if I wanted to experience being in the storm, but the storm was moving fast and so leaving my viewing spot and heading west ran the risk of me missing the storm completely. I decided to take the risk, I headed westwards and pretty soon hit the rain. It was only a small storm spatially, so much so that through the rain I could see the moon shining just to my south.

I wanted to be ahead of the storm, and so I raced northwards, but the storm was moving too quickly to outpace it and so I eventually decided to stop and let the storm move directly over me. As it did there was a brief but very intense bout of strong winds and large hailstones (estimated the size of marble to grape size). For a couple of minutes I could see nothing, and my car was being hammered with hailstones. From inside the car the noise was loud, it sounded like my windscreen was going to crack but I was too excited over what I was seeing to think to much about that.

Within 5 minutes the hail and winds subsided and left just heavy rain. I decided to chase it in the direction of Filey, although I knew I couldn't catch it up. Instead I drove through flooding and drifts of hailstones as bright flashes of lightning lit the sky ahead of me. By the time I reached Filey the storm had long moved out to sea. The video is below, severe storm first appears at 23:55 into the video.

 

If you stopped briefly on the Grindale Road behind an empty car and a weird guy was shining his phone camera flash at you from a field, then hello! I wasn't sure if it was someone out looking at storms, an angry farmer or gun toting lampers (which I've run into storm chasing before in this neck of the woods!) 

[Supacell]

3 hours ago, Gorky said:

If you stopped briefly on the Grindale Road behind an empty car and a weird guy was shining his phone camera flash at you from a field, then hello! I wasn't sure if it was someone out looking at storms, an angry farmer or gun toting lampers (which I've run into storm chasing before in this neck of the woods!) 

I didn't stop until after there, between Grindale and Burton Fleming but hello anyway. However, if it wasn't me then it could have been one of those gun toting lampers, thankfully I have not ran into any of them as yet. I've met a few of the angry farmers though

[dec10snow]

World record lightning - a single flash travels more than 700 km in Brasil

WWW.SEVERE-WEATHER.EU

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Record lightning flash: The longest lightning flash duration of 16 seconds in Argentina, the longest distance is set at more than 700 km across Brasil!