SimonP

Possibly because the Met Office are themselves already mentioning it in their forecasts, therefore as are the BBC.

Going by how GFS has performed this week with regards thunderstorm potential/CAPE, FI seems to be T+24h at the moment!

Here we go - synoptics shown a few times through the video:

I noticed the latest update to the MetO wordy forecast (updated 1508 BST): Headline:Muggy and possibly thundery in the south overnight. Drier elsewhere. This Evening and Tonight:A warm and muggy night across southeast England with an increasing risk of thundery showers. Elsewhere, some clear spells but also some patchy mist and low cloud. The far north of Scotland also seeing some patchy rain at times.

Heh, seems everyone's having issues! They posted this on their FB page yesterday:

Good to see Estofex forecasts have returned! As a side note, it's now UKASF's turn - no forecasts will be issued between now and the 17th May, owing to forecasters chasing in the US and scheduled maintenance/updates to the site.

Thanks Paul. Many thanks Coast, weather09, Gael_Force for the information. Lots of interesting stuff on their Facebook page... I hope they'll keep posting on there when they start issuing forecasts again, particularly real-time stuff!

Hi all, Courtesy of the Estofex Facebook page, I came across this link which collates quite a number of photos and videos of the event: http://centrometeoemiliaromagna.weebly.com/curiositagrave.html Also, thanks weather09 for the superb analysis of the event! I also noticed this from Estofex: "this could be an event, where local, mesoscale conditions significantly altered the pre-convective environment."

Thanks weather09 - sounds like they may have had some sort of hardware issue with the server... The main reason for asking was because I see a tornado was reported today in Italy - would have been nice to have seen their forecast...

Hi all, I noticed the past week or so that no Estofex forecasts have been issued, and so upon checking the website encountered this message a couple of days ago: We regret that until further notice no forecasts are issued due to a technical problem. We are working to resolve it as soon as possible. The ESTOFEX team. Now the site just reveals a 503 message saying they are offline for maintenance. Does anyone have any more information? Cheers, Simon

Quite a day! Seen some amazing structures - there must surely be some good pics and vids out there! Going purely on GFS and its CAPE modelling, could be a couple of days this coming week with potential. Keeping an eye on things...! Also, kudos to Estofex who had a chunk of the UK under a 50% lightning area. No severe warning area, as they mention in their text; warranted due to the lack of DLS etc. Lots of people have been slating their forecasts as they have issued a couple of severe level areas (some level 1s issued earlier this year) for the UK, only for CI to not occur. However, such areas have only been surrounded by a 15% lightning area, and many people seem to overlook this!

If only they had some way of searching the internet, eh? brb, gonna do this now and call it "google" LEWP = line echo wave pattern. Squall line.

haha, yeah! Also caught my eye was the "AMENDED" text at the top of the forecast, never seen that before... Wonder if they already had a forecast drafted out... Interesting.

ESTOFEX forecast is out - level 1: http://www.estofex.org/cgi-bin/polygon/showforecast.cgi?text=yes&fcstfile=2012081606_201208150941_2_stormforecast.xml

Download the image(s) to your 'puter.. Then upload them as attachments in your post (click the 'image' toolbar button in the post editor).

Indeed. At least the potential is there, many factors still remain - need to see what synoptics will be like nearer the time. In the meantime, we can all enjoy the BBQs

Quite a change with the 18Z GFS run as you'd maybe expect - sees an abundance of CAPE over in France on 26th! On the 27th, still quite "nice" CAPE values in southern parts. (SB)CAPE present at 00Z even. Does look like a bit of an eastern shift though from the previous run. Guess we can expect such chopping and changing at such timeframes... Needless to say, this is going to be an interesting one to watch unfold...

UKASF posted on Twitter about an hour ago: Strong capping is preventing any deep convection from occurring - topographic forcing over Wales resulting in lightning there... Strong capping is preventing any deep convection from occurring - topographic forcing over Wales resulting in lightning there... — Convective Weather (@convectivewx) July 13, 2012

Certainly the BBC forecast at lunchtime had cells having already broken out in a line from, say, mid-Wales through the Home Counties etc by 16:00 - so already seems quite "behind schedule". Can't help that pessimism creeping in, but I have to say, plenty of TCu around now... Time will tell!

Thanks for the usual charts, Coast! Always good to see. Here's another forecast, this from Tony Gilbert over at UKww: Still quite overcast here at the moment; hoping lack of insolation isn't going to be an issue. Plenty of time, however!

Since my last post, Estofex have updated the forecast slightly - now placed CS England under a 50% thunderstorm area and updated the text to read:

Regarding Friday's potential, UKASF have gone with a moderate risk: In addition, ESTOFEX have included a chunk of the UK under a 15-% thunderstorm area, and have included the following text: Full UKASF forecast can be found here: http://www.ukasf.co....m-forecasts/194 Full ESTOFEX forecast can be found here: http://www.estofex.o...ormforecast.xml

UKASF forecast for Wednesday is now out: http://www.ukasf.co.uk/storm-forecasts/193

Back up again now - runs off the same box as estofex.org which also had issues yesterday..

Well, kind of -- they are referring to excessive convective rainfall -- they don't/won't issue level X warnings for non-convective excessive rainfall (same for non-convective wind gusts, otherwise we'd be seeing level X warnings issued all the time in the UK for the sheer number of non-thunderstorm wind events we encounter annually). This is all covered in their FAQs; for example: