sn0wman

Newhaven webcams - http://www.newhavenwebcams.co.uk/ Lots of lightning visible on the east cam!

Stonking forecast from estofex tonight! Very rare to have wording such as "giant hail" and "extremely severe wind gusts" when describing convective potential in the UK. Seems like a bow-echo could possibly form over Northern France in the evening and affect parts of Southern England later on in the night For those further north and west, remember that the estofex warning only covers the period from 6am on Friday to 6am on Saturday, when storms are not forecast to be much further north than the warning area indicates.

Really hope we get something I think the main reason we're not forecasted as much SBCAPE/MUCAPE as many other places is because of the lower temperatures expected here. This seems to be due to the fact that easterly winds will bring much cooler (and more stable) air inland from the North Sea. Hopefully, some thunderstorms will still be able to survive the less conducive conditions and give us a nice show

Really hoping that Scotland can join in on some of the action during Friday/Saturday! SBCAPE + MUCAPE aren't looking too great for us though Pleasantly surprised that the Met Office have included Eastern Scotland in their warning. Perhaps their high-resolution UKV model is showing more destabilisation of the lower atmosphere over this area than the WRF-NMM or the GFS

Look to be pepping up now! Fingers crossed we'll get something

Plymouth - 56mph Sustained 81mph Gusts http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Forth is flooding now in Alloa, still a good 40-45 minutes until high tide too. The water has submerged parts of the old docks, something not seen in many, many years!

18Z NAE run has the low at 924mb! :bomb: I imagine the Met Office will put more of Scotland under an amber weather warning tomorrow morning.

Absolute carnage here. Was just about to leave for school and as I'm in walking through the hallway, a monster of a gust smashes a large window upstairs and flings glass everywhere. Was just walking past it a few minutes before as well, could've been seriously injured there. Decided not to go to school today haha. It's been really strange so far; it was very windy when I got up but there weren't any huge gusts at least. However, in the last couple of hours the wind has become less sustained, but every twenty minutes or so, a monumental gust happens out of nowhere.

Very true, latest wind gust forecasts are higher than the storm on December 8th 2011! Also, there appears to be a wider range of severe winds included in this storm, I'm thinking areas further south will also get some of the 70mph+ winds. Quite bemused on the lack of attention in the media for Thursday's storm though; pretty sure by tomorrow the Met Office will alert them on the severity of this event. This one has certainly crept up on us, makes up for the all the downgrades of this 'Arctic Blast'.

Exactly, the storm seems to have been upgraded on every run since yesterday. I wonder what the GFS 18Z will show.

Excellent post, Vorticity. I believe Coast means that these three threads should be merged together, as they are basically discussing the same thing.

See this link for the maximum gusts recorded during Hurricane Bawbag - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2011_decwind I remember on the day thinking that the gusts weren't as severe as I had expected, seemed to really get going in the morning and then die down by the afternoon (when it was meant to be at its strongest!). The central pressure doesn't determine the wind speed (although it does give a good indication), it's really how close together the isobars are around the storm. With this area of low pressure on Thursday, the isobars are really packed together due to the steep gradient between it and the strong area of high pressure centred just west of Ireland. So to sum this up: Hurricane Bawbag = Lower central pressure, but not as much of a difference between the areas of low and high pressure. Storm on Thursday = Higher central pressure, but a large difference (gradient) in pressure. Personally, I'm thinking the wind gusts on Thursday could be as severe / more severe due to this, but not as severe as the January 3rd 2013 storm.

Interesting hook on the latest radar image - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/ Centre looks to be directly west of Land's End at the moment.

Starting to look a bit more impressive on satellite currently. Here's a link to a satellite animation of a classic explosively deepening storm system - http://www.umanitoba.ca/environment/envirogeog/weather/leafanim.html Note the baroclinic leaf present at the beginning of the animation.

Could you link where you're getting this data from? The only wind observation site I have at the moment is the xcweather one and it takes half an hour to update. Edit: Never mind, RCT got there first.

Thanks for the advice. I've looked at the chart from 4 hours ago and the pressure was calculated at 1004mb then. Still equates to a steady deepening rate of 2mb per hour (down 8mb in 4 hours) so it may not be too far off the mark.

Looks to be intensifying slightly faster than forecast by both the GFS and UKMO models. This is the current surface analysis from observations - http://meteocentre.com/analyses/map.php?map=eur_full&date=2013102712&size=small〈=en&area=eur Pressure of 996mb observed; around 2-4 mb more intense than was forecast for 12pm today. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ukmo2.php?nh=0&ech=12&carte=1021 I will be doing updates every 3 hours on the pressure of this system versus the model forecast. Not convinced it will only be at 985mb as it crosses the Midlands (as forecast by the GFS). Edit: It has intensified by roughly 2mb in the past hour. If we assume the system will be over the Midlands at around 2am, that gives us approximately 13 hours of intensification and if it keeps intensifying at its current rate, it should be at around 970mb.

Oh my Explosive cyclogenesis occurs much earlier on this run. I imagine the low will end up being around 960mb. Isobars are extremely tight as well. GFS not quite as enthusiastic in its development this morning: http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=72&mode=0 Still a nasty little storm even on this run though. I think that this storm definitely warrants an early amber warning, the fact that it looks to be from the remnants of ex-Tropical Storm Lorenzo means it should carry more convective potential and therefore, the likelihood of severe gusts coming down to the surface is higher than normal.

Amazing pictures! If you don't mind me asking, what kind of camera did you use to capture them?

Can see the lightning out towards Dunfermline a lot better now it's getting darker. Nothing better than a good night thunderstorm!

Yesss! Finally some thunder and lightning! Think it's from that cracker of a storm over Dunfermline.

Something approaching from the SSE, can't see anything on the radar but looks quite beefy in person.

Thunderstorms missing Alloa again. So close yet so far.

So frustrating to watch that massive MCS moving up over us and then breaking apart at the last minute. Really hoping that some storms will get going later.