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staplehurst

Pro Forecaster / Meteorologist
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Everything posted by staplehurst

  1. staplehurst
    Agreed - although wouldn't be surprised if Norfolk didn't see much in the way of lightning at all. Going to be a real mess tomorrow, plenty of convective rain around but sceptical as to how much lightning there will be...
  2. staplehurst
    12z EURO4 representing the storm activity reasonably well thus far - just a shame it's not available earlier in the afternoon! However, it is still, alongside it's 00z and 06z counterparts, producing a lot of rain over London, Surrey, NW Kent and parts of Essex at the end of the night into first thing tomorrow morning - and given it's persistence this should probably be taken more seriously now that there could be some notable impacts in these areas for the morning commute etc...
  3. staplehurst
    Agreed - latest high res models (UKV and EURO4) continue the trend to nudge things further SE, broadly in a zone where we see the wind convergence right now, i.e. Swanage NE-wards to Medway. This would still place some parts of Dorset at risk, but would put more of the Home Counties and London within the 'zone of potential'. Of bigger concern might be the impacts from thunderstorms that develop later in the night over London and SE England which could have some notable impacts on the morning commute, for example. Treated with a low probability in any one specific place for now, but certainly something to keep an eye on...
  4. staplehurst
    That'll be the 00z EURO4 that MetDesk have tweeted there. Whereabouts are those ECMWF charts from Nick?
  5. staplehurst
    Depends where you source your information from though - a Slight chance of Severe thunderstorms that talks about the potential for hail 3-4cm and "any storms that do develop on Tuesday ... will produce quite frequent lightning" suggests that somewhere might get a decent storm?
  6. staplehurst
    and this is a perfect candidate for why it is not realistically possible to give site-specific forecasts of exactly where and when thunderstorms will occur, especially when they originate from the mid-levels - because at the end of the day, forecast apps etc are driven by models and if models can't capture things correctly and/or struggle with plume events, then they will offer little use in these particular setups. Ingredients-based methods works better, whilst trying to spot trends amongst various NWP output. Problem with GFS is it's a coarse-resolution global model - it's never going to capture every single thunderstorm, because they are much smaller in size than the grid spacing of this model. And sadly the GFS hasn't been particularly useful in many of the plume events over recent weeks. Certainly a blend of ECMWF and EURO4/UKV offers the best guidance - not perfect, but generally a lot better than the GFS. But most free apps are run off the GFS (or WRF / NMM derivatives that use the GFS for their boundary/initialisation conditions).
  7. staplehurst
    Despite the intense thunderstorms in parts of England last Saturday, August 2016 overall was a pretty quiet month for thunder (as most of us know ha!)...
  8. staplehurst
    There is a suggestion that as the upper trough approaches from the Atlantic and engages with the low/mid-level high WBPT plume then there could be some elevated convection this evening spawned over the eastern English Channel and running NE across C/E Kent into the North Sea - the western extent of coverage still uncertain, as is often the case.
  9. staplehurst
    How on earth do you come to that conclusion? From what I can see, given the huge amount of uncertainty, it's actually gone quite to plan...
  10. staplehurst
    I don't blame you at all - I wish I was there to witness it too ha! Dry, quite sunny in Norwich but quite a blustery easterly wind, fuelling the storms out west and southwest.
  11. staplehurst
    Well nothing's forecast to happen until post-midnight anyway
  12. staplehurst
    He's been telling a different UK weather forum about the altocumulus castellanus over Devon for the past few days
  13. staplehurst
    Thanks Dave - mid-level plumes and the like are always fraught with uncertainties, but this particular spell feels moreso than 'average'. Hard also trying to gauge which bits of precip could turn thundery - wasn't overly-sold on the outer frontal wave type feature (that ran over the Midlands in the early hours) being thundery, hence kept the SLGT over the narrow corridor where lightning seemed more likely from elevated thunderstorms. Coverage didn't look great enough to upgrade to MDT, hence the comment in the forecast text about it not being as active as the 19-20 July event. Today is not really any more clear-cut. General idea being the risk of TS activity increases later today and into this evening/tonight, but as to where, how active will lightning be, will we develop a supercell with large hail? A lot of uncertainty, but the potential is there for sure!
  14. staplehurst
    This is 7am yesterday to 7am this morning… (lightning are the black dots)
  15. staplehurst
    Depends on your preference - I for one am thankful for the noticeable cool northerly breeze! and it's Alex today - I'm back on Friday...
  16. staplehurst
    Mist and low cloud rolled well-inland from the North Sea in Norwich this evening, so after a max of 29C this afternoon we've been sitting at 17C with a dew point of 17C all evening, and a cloud base lit orange by the city lights at 100ft above the ground! Just seen a few flashes lightning up all this mist above our heads with a long, deep but quiet rumble.
  17. staplehurst
    This is a destabilisation occurring through this evening and overnight, hence the reason why there are showery outbreaks of rain developing and running NE-wards, with some embedded lightning on the eastern fringes at times. I'm yet to read any written forecast that suggested anything livelier than that? http://www.convectiveweather.co.uk/forecast.php?date=2016-08-24
  18. staplehurst
    First, the Herstmonceux (East Sussex) 12z sounding reveals a hot and quite dry airmass across the SE today, and even adjusting for a surface temperature of 33.8C (which was the highest achieved today in the UK at Cavendish in Suffolk) still does not break the cap, even though it gives a tasty 2,200 J/kg SBCAPE. Capped in fairly substantially to surface convection today! However, as we have seen with the medium level activity spreading up from Biscay and Brest, the 12z Camborne (Cornwall) sounding looks more unstable and also very moist in the medium levels, atop quite a warm but dry low-level airmass - so as we have seen with some subtle upper forcing, elevated convection has brought showery bursts of rain and the odd thunderstorm, but this falling through a lot of dry air so probably no more than some large convective drops that don't amount to much in the rain gauge - at least at first, until things moisten-up further through the night. I suspect we'll see a continuation of this theme overnight until better upper forcing arrives, especially late in the night into tomorrow morning.
  19. staplehurst
    Thanks - a useful site to have. Although forecast soundings will be limited by how many vertical levels are available in each model, but nonetheless are a useful tool - and in this case, plotting a projected Normand's Construction would also suggest any rising parcel would reach the capping inversion at approx 775mb.
  20. staplehurst
    Frustratingly there are very few 12z soundings available for the UK, but if we take the Larkhill ascent from this afternoon and adjust the surface temperature to 25C with a dewpoint of 12C (which seems reasonable for the London area this afternoon etc), you can see that there is some convective potential, but it becomes capped off around 750mb (or approx 2.5km above the ground) due to warmer layers above - in fact it becomes even more capped off at 700mb (3km up), thus severely limiting the potential depth of convection. Farther north, I suspect this capping in the mid-levels is slightly weaker, allowing parcels to achieve greater heights, but still capped off to a certain extent and hence the presence of some heavy showers over Merseyside recently, but with next to no lightning - it's not totally out of the question, but it's quite a low potential today.
  21. staplehurst
    @Supacell What I will say is, though, once you go to America you'll be hooked and want to go again and again - my first was in 2012, but I've been back every year since, and no sooner have I landed back in the UK after each trip that I'm already looking forward to the following year...
  22. staplehurst
    Yes, Met Office are still the providers for BBC Weather. Nothing has been announced publicly (to my knowledge) as to who the next provider will be, though.
  23. staplehurst
    Small tweaks were made to the SVR to extend it farther north across Scotland, the MDT was also extended a little bit more over NW England, and the SLGT was shrunk from E Ireland.
  24. staplehurst
    Largely diurnally driven, but areas of forcing will keep bands of showery precipitation going overnight, albeit with a much reduced thunder/lightning risk until diurnal heating recommences tomorrow morning. Most likely areas to see further showery bursts overnight are over the Cheshire Plain, West Midlands and down towards Glocs/Wiltshire and perhaps Hampshire way. Incidentally, there were a few lightning strikes detected just ESE of Godalming around lunchtime earlier on today - here's the lightning strikes detected so far since this forecast period started (7am BST) through until now, which I guess would satisfy the forecast of a slight (30-45%) chance of lightning within a 25 mile radius...
  25. staplehurst
    Hi William, They're seen as more 'forecasts' than 'warnings' per se - we leave that to the Met Office. Right now I'm currently in Wichita KS so my colleague Chris is looking after things while I'm chasing state-side, not sure what his availability is like with shifts etc.
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