Is this phrase catching on? There is an excellent site from Reading University's Meteorology department documenting the daily weather going back to the late 1990s:
[url="http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/"]http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/[/url]

...and in its summary for the 3rd February it says the following:
[quote]Overnight into the 3rd snow fell mainly in E areas of England and Scotland although some falls were reported in Ireland, SW England, the Channel islands and other places. To the S of the snow most places in England and Wales had an air frost - with Cent and E England then having a cold day. During the day there were further falls of sleet and snow in N and E Scotland resulting from fronts circulating around a low pressure area centred over S Ireland (MSL pressure down to 985mb). There were also some snow showers over Ireland, Wales and SW England that gave some heavu falls in places. The Met Office also reported some [b]thundery, wintry showers [/b]in S countiews of England which died out as they moved N.[/quote]

I remember being affected by those showers in Exeter on that day- there was no thunder here but there were certainly some quite dramatic showers of snow, sleet and hail.

The 15th June was an amazing day of weather in Exeter. It started off dry and sunny but shower clouds shot up during the morning and there was a colossal rainstorm at 11:30am, which led to some limited flash flooding around the Met Office. After some sunshine and showers over lunchtime, a thunderstorm came over from 2 to 2:30pm, with even more torrential rain- rivalling the deluge of the 6th June, although it was of more normal duration for rain of such intensity (about 10-15 minutes). There were about 20 rumbles of thunder in total and some overhead lightning. Flash flooding again occurred and although I didn't specifically notice any hail, it was reported from the location as well. The rest of the day was mainly sunny with a few showers, and at 7pm there was a "sunny shower"- a moderate shower with bright sunshine throughout leading to a vivid rainbow.
True, the Norwich area got rather more severe thunderstorms (as per usual!) but from what I've seen and heard the rain was no more intense than in Exeter and the storms constituted one long spell of thunder- a large part of me feels happier to have had the short sharp cloudbursts that Exeter experienced.

On a related note I am leaving the Met Office in three and a half weeks' time. The place and the people who work there will certainly be sorely missed, but on the other hand it will also be good to be reunited with UEA and the people who work there. The MetO has made an excellent account of itself while I've been there, and I hope to end up back there at some point during my future career.

As for the climate of Exeter, I don't like the climate as much as that of Norwich overall, but I have to say that it's rather better from my perspective than I expected (and that's not just because the winter was unusually snowy- though if that is ever a problem there's always Dartmoor which is about as snowy as inland parts of North-East England). Sunshine hours are good, anticyclonic gloom relatively rare, summer weather pleasantly warm, and although thunderstorms aren't that numerous, there is no shortage of heavy convective rainstorms at any time of the year. Certainly more interesting than the climate of Lancaster, which is the other part of western Britain that I've lived in.