Storms and Convective discussion - 16th June 2021 onwards

[LightningLover]

Distant, very dim flash. Possibly obscured by a thin layer of seamist? 

Edit: faint rumble

Edited June 28, 2021 by LightningLover

[Southern Storm]

Looking like the western edge is starting to pep up again but gonna hold fire for the next 15 minutes before deciding if it's worth heading out.

Did capture some footage of some passing storms earlier, but need to go through the videos, hopefully some of the lightning got picked up, and if not I still have some thunder to listen too

 

[alexisj9]

3 minutes ago, LightningLover said:

Distant, very dim flash. Possibly obscured by a thin layer of seamist? 

Edit: faint rumble

Trust me, nothing thin about this fog, had it for three days now. Even when it rains above, the lower fog stays.

[LightningLover]

Cell seems to flashing every 15 seconds or so! Didn't think there was that much fuel this evening?

[Electricmumma]

16 minutes ago, LightningLover said:

Cell seems to flashing every 15 seconds or so! Didn't think there was that much fuel this evening?

What am I missing?

[staplehurst]

18 minutes ago, LightningLover said:

Cell seems to flashing every 15 seconds or so! Didn't think there was that much fuel this evening?

Model sounding for 11pm BST in roughly that area from the 12z ECMWF - highlights 300 J/kg CAPE with parcels likely lifted from the 900mb level (notice no surface-based CAPE due to cooler temperatures down at sea level relative to aloft). CAPE is quite skinny but would give you cloud tops colder than -40C, and some decent cloud-layer shear, albeit unidirectional. Water vapour imagery also suggests this is forming on the leading edge of some very dry air associated with a PV anomaly, providing extra 'lift'.

Several models have been toying with the idea with a period of uptick in activity over the Channel tonight, probably eventually merging with the mass of rain currently over the IoW and environs, but as to how long lightning lasts for is uncertain...

Edited June 28, 2021 by staplehurst

[LightningLover]

Just now, staplehurst said:

Model sounding for 11pm BST in roughly that area from the 12z ECMWF - highlights 300 J/kg CAPE with parcels likely lifted from the 800mb level (notice no surface-based CAPE due to cooler temperatures down at sea level relative to aloft). CAPE is quite skinny but would give you cloud tops colder than -40C, and some decent cloud-layer shear, albeit unidirectional. Water vapour imagery also suggests this is forming on the leading edge of some very dry air associated with a PV anomaly, providing extra 'lift'.

Thank you! Said it before but I always appreciate your convective forecasts and insightful analysis.

[LightningLover]

3 minutes ago, Electricmumma said:

What am I missing?

Occasional flashing in the Eastern Channel courtesy of a lone elevated cell

[Electricmumma]

1 minute ago, LightningLover said:

Occasional flashing in the Eastern Channel courtesy of a lone elevated cell

Too late to go out now

[Captain Thunderpants]

Typical . 10 miles away, near Sturminster Newton where my workshop is, flash flooding, lightning, thunder, apparently really extreme conditions. I received a phone call to say my unit is flooded so not sure what I'm going to find in the morning.... Here at home, near Sherborne, not even so much as spit of rain.... 

[wimblettben]

Just now, Captain Thunderpants said:

Typical . 10 miles away, near Sturminster Newton where my workshop is, flash flooding, lightning, thunder, apparently really extreme conditions. I received a phone call to say my unit is flooded so not sure what I'm going to find in the morning.... Here at home, near Sherborne, not even so much as spit of rain.... 

The one time that you could have experienced some interesting weather, you were away!

[Captain Thunderpants]

3 minutes ago, wimblettben said:

The one time that you could have experienced some interesting weather, you were away!

I know. And all I have to show for it is a flooded workshop

[Southern Storm]

Is anyone in here that is near that intense rain between Portsmouth and the IOW?

I'm surprised that nothing electrical is coming from it.

Still feel the night is young

[matt111]

3 hours ago, Southern Storm said:

Is anyone in here that is near that intense rain between Portsmouth and the IOW?

I'm surprised that nothing electrical is coming from it.

Still feel the night is young

Would appear there’s still nothing electrical but it’s reached here now with torrential rain that just woke me up 

[Guest]

27mm of convective rainfall in the 12hrs to 7am. St Catherines points picked up 53mm. Places north of here probably 50-80mm.

[Robbie Garrett]

On 28/06/2021 at 17:41, Robbie Garrett said:

So after many hours sitting on my backside waiting for this weather to clear up, it finally went above the minima for our departure and eventually return.  We have no official instrument approaches at Stapleford.

So we departed above the layer and no real issues, was in and out of Cu/St. Completed the Instrument Approach into Lydd, and this thing was shooting up right at the hold for the missed approach.  So did a weather avoiding turn and tracked around it.  Awe inspiring the power of them as I was getting lift behind its path. Definitely wouldn't have enjoyed flying through it...

 

 

Well the day after I flew the same routing, and whilst not massively convective on radar. I am sure there was some stuff embedded that was packing a punch,  but the scariest thing of all. It was so smooth inside the heaviest of the rainfall.   First time I've had zero visibility outside the canopy, normally it's the wings. But the rainfall was so intense in places, we couldn't see.

[ancientsolar]

line of torrential downpours SE Wales and the borders. ~ nothing thundery, though the sky has looked thundery for hours

[dr weather]

13 minutes ago, ancientsolar said:

line of torrential downpours SE Wales and the borders. ~ nothing thundery, though the sky has looked thundery for hours

Yep, can see those out of my window.

[ancientsolar]

1 minute ago, dr weather said:

Yep, can see those out of my window.

Does it look like high top clouds from where you are ? pretty intense, room dark for a good while now.

[ancientsolar]

Sferics ~ 20miles ish west of Hereford, Welsh/English border. 

[dr weather]

2 hours ago, ancientsolar said:

Does it look like high top clouds from where you are ? pretty intense, room dark for a good while now.

Yes, high tops. Looks like it's all easing back now, though still some high tops towards Gloucester and Hereford, at a guess from what I can see. (I have a fairly straight view up the Severn Estuary from where I am).

[Harry]

App has been teasingly showing thunder icon for Sunday. Let’s see.
 

But I can’t remember a more dismal run of weather in late June early July (for the SE at least - I appreciate other parts of the UK have suffered persistent rain and awful floods during summer time). 

[Sam jackson88]

This looks like a monster in the making the base to the top must be 30000 ft at least, more of to my sw aswell 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Sam jackson88 said:

This looks like a monster in the making the base to the top must be 30000 ft at least, more of to my sw aswell 

More like 10k at most. 30k top would have a big presence on radar and there’s only a couple of modest showers.

Still it does look fairly convective outside here too, like we’re you are. Was a convective forecast issued for today? I’ve not really been paying attention. 

[BrickFielder]

 Whenever July comes around the despondency from the no storms club ramps up and jealousy of certain favoured areas rises. It is always the South coast I hear yet actually sea surface temperature  air cooling makes summer storms less likely and autumn storms more likely.
 I hear that we do not get storms like we used to, yet nobody really does analysis to confirm this. Surprisingly somebody has does some analysis and confirmed that for a limited area of the UK this is true. Detailed records of thunderstorm occurrence are available between 1828 and 1986 for the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford with reliable private record of thunder frequency from Oxford since 1986 used to extend the record to 2020. These have been compared to other records from the likes of Kew gardens and a pattern of decline in thunderstorms has been detected for Oxford and possibly a 20 year cycle.
 Reasons suggested include a pattern shift for Spanish plumes, but also less South westerly winds during the summer. It would be easy to say this is anthropological climate change and there is evidence that the latest climate models shift blocking eastwards and higher latitude blocking due to warming. Decadal Atlantic Sea surface pattern changes, returns to Barlett/Azores High dominate weather, magnetic pole shifts affecting gravity waves, changes to ionosphere weather and the Stratopause due to solar dynamo sunspot cycle changes may all play some part. I will let others decide the causes.
 I guess watching the models and seeing most favourable storms environments invariably disappear will train your eyes to the environments most likely to produce storms. The Oxford storm alley environment comes to mind with South westerly winds and a trough either surface based or High up preferably in a warm sector. Saturday and Sunday are showing elements of that type of environment.

Fax charts suggest troughs or occluded fronts. Forecast SkewTs suggest some potent convection given some moderate daytime temperatures. There is the one factor that is out of sync with storm imitation namely during the summer you need temperatures above 25C for a good storm generally and this looks closer to a spring storm setup. Still to far out to look at with any detail but worth a heads up.