Lauren

Will thundersnow count as a storm?

Thanks Coast, I'll have a watch of that later.

I've remembered another one. I have kept thunderstorm diaries since I was 7 years as they have always fascinated me (I blame my parent's fascination!). I used to record the ones on holiday too. I dragged them out the other day. It was August 1997 in Bulgaria. This was 2 weeks after a huge MCS had hit SE England and lasted all night, the account of which I have written earlier in this thread. We were in the mountains and at that time of year thunderstorms are common. We had opted to go on a walking tour that lasted half a day and we saw some great scebery and wildlife, including a few bears. Our guide was almost psychic, he was that good at telling the weather. We'd reached a peak of a mountain and he was surveying the horizon. It was quite obvious that in the distance a big storm was building, you could literally see the anvils rising and it looked bad. He told us we had to make our way back quickly to the hotel as 'this is a big one'. He told us it would reach the hotel in about 30 minutes and if we went back now we'd get back just in time. We were all disappointed as we were enjoying the hike but he was adamant tis was not a safe storm to be in. We were all compliant and made a hurried return. I remember talking to him on the way down and he was saying up there storms can develop within minutes with no warning or indication whatsoever. When we were about 5 minutes from the hotel we could hear huge booms approaching. We got back to our hotel room and stood out on the balcony overlooking the mountains and sure enough to the exact minute the storm hit. First came a strong wind, then heavy rain and huge hail. Thunder boomed around the mountain valleys so loud we had to shout to be heard and lightning was forking everywhere and was non stop. There was a tower on one of the mountain peaks which was an observation tower as well as a transmission tower and it got hit several times. My Mum grabbed the camera and just clicked randomnly to try and get a photo. Somehow she did get one hitting this tower and I will try and find it. The storm was so strong we could see tree branches breaking. We just stood on the balcony fascinated by this storm and glad we had got back in time. It carried on until dinnertime (about 3 hours) although the first half hour was the most intense. After the storm we walked outside and a few trees had fallen and branches were strewn all over the place. There were concerns for people who had been hiking in the mountains, but they had sheltered in a cafe at the top of the mountain. It was very eerie afterwards, dead still. We crossed paths with our guide later that evening and he told us it was a supercell (in far more words than that) and we were very lucky to have got back in time. I don't think there was a tornado but there was definite rotation and the tree damage would suggest so as well as the hail and 'feel' of the storm. It was one of those times when the enormity of the storm makes you feel so insignificant.

I have browsed the internet and can't seem to find a simple answer. They send probes into tornadoes to learn about how they work and what happens inside of one as well as collecting various other data. But how does this information help them with tornado warnings? Sure I can see how seeing how a tornado forms would do this, but they don't actually put the probe in during it's formation do they?

I think you're correct in terms of there being less thunderstorms, most certainly there have been. I am absolutely certain of that. Looking back thorugh my storm diaries we had them in abundance in the 90's, a decline but still a respectable amount up till 2005 and since 2005 we've been lucky to get one a year. But I disagree with everything else, we've had very hot summers, lots of snow in winter (here at least anyway). If I recall there was an article in April about how the BBC were going to investigate the sharp decline in storms.

Didn't know it was so well known! I've had a look back at some of my thunderstorm diaries from when i was a kid and they match pretty closely with his stuff. As I've said it is painfully apparent that thunderstorms have become more of a rariety over the past decade.

^^^ CRIKEY!

I can't believe they have weather charts from back then!

I know this isn't current. But we were in Croatia in late August 2006 and the weather there towards the end turned cyclonic. One of the people we spoke to in the hotel worked for mediterranean meterological people (no idea what they are called). He said that the system was likely to turn into a tropical storm, but I'm not sure it ever did and looking at the records it doesn't have appeared to. Either way for the last couple of days we were there it was pretty 'tropical storm' like. We had hot mornings which tunred extrememly humid and by afternoon into the late evenings we were getting strong winds, lashing rain and severe thunderstorms. When we flew home we had to go a long route to miss the sytem and i distinctly recall the pilot saying the weather sytem was extrememly unusual and normally seen in the tropics.

Thanks for those, how do you get hold of this stuff??? Can't narrow it down I'm afraid, my memory isn't that good!

Found this website which has weather diaries from almost 15 years ago. It gives detailed daily summaries of the weather for each day of each month for different years. This one is 1999, but just type in the year you want and it should come up (not sure it goes back further than1999). It's painfully apparent thunderstorms were much more in abundanc back then. http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/diary1999.html

Ah that could very well have been what caused it. I spoke to my Mum earlier and she said it was definitely the beginning of August 1997 as we were supposed to be going on holiday the next weekend. There were several MCS overnighters that year if I recall. How did you find this, I have been looking for a while.

Thanks for that Coast. None of those seem to be in the area (kent) or for the duration. Odd.

Does anyone remember the series of stormy nights we had at the beginning of August 1997. The days had been incredibly hot and the late afternoons brought serious humidity. For several nights we had a series of small outbreaks none lasting longer than about 15 minutes. Then one night we had the big one. It started up at about 7.30pm with the oddest looking sky I had ever seen. It was almost a dark green colour, whilst it was still light and just built and built and built. It was a very big MCS with lightning every 5 seconds at least and almost continuous thunder. It was so loud it was impossible to sleep. In fact I distinctly remember my whole family gathering in my Mum and Dad's bedroom and just watching out of the window all night. We could also see most other families on the street just looking out their windows. We saw a house a few streets up get struck by lightening and burn until the fire brigade came. We saw on the news the next day that dozens of houses had been hit throughout the area and many houses had lost power. The storm didn't let up all night and only started to quieten down at around 8am the next morning. There wasn't that much rain if I recall which seemed weird to us at the time. The rain did come over the next few nights and it pretty much torrentially rained solidly all night throughout those evenings. I should add this was in the SE and |I'm not sure if it happened over the rest of the country. I have asked several people about this storm and many remember it but I can't seem to find any news articles on it (there were lots!) or any data from that evening. If anyone can remember this or can find the data on it, that would be great.

We all get disappointed, but it's waste of time doing so as that is simply the nature of the weather and is why we love it and hate it. Just relax and let it happen. They say a watched pot never boils!

Surprised not to hear thunder in that downpour, but our potential is more for tomorrow apparently.

Crikey, just drove through some seriously heavy rain on the way home.

Most annoying how most of the storm symbils for tomorrow have gone

BBC and Met forecasting lunchtime storms for tomorrow. Annoyingly I will ne in work so hopefully they will kindly delay themselves until I get in. As Harry said the charts are looking good for this time of year.

Looks like there's some serious rain coming on the horizon. Very grey and lots of bright white Cu.

Cold, grey and dry. Like it has been today. Loathe it. If you're going to be cold you might as well rain or snow or something!

Wasn't sure where to put this, but found an interesting docu on lightening here:

Snowing in NYC! http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/

I like it. It looks 'prettier' and is easy to use.

You're only about 25 miles from me! *stamps foot*