East_England_Stormchaser91

It’s been one of the more tedious Julys of my lifetime, but a better one for the farmers and the country in general. At least this year should yield some decent crop production unlike the furnace of last July, as exciting as it was. August may well deliver some decent warm/hot spells, and especially if we see an ex tropical storm move up and shake the pattern up.

I remember hearing all of the “drier and warmer” summers back after the 38.5c in 2003, and reports expecting that to become the norm! We had to wait nearly another 20 years for it! Nobody knows what the weather is going to do over the years. 2007 seemed like a switch had been flicked. For 5 years, it was an achievement to even get 30c. There was even a few articles questioning “where have our hot summers gone” at that time around 2011-12!! It’s easy to hype about the here and now!

I have a fairly photographic memory, and this summer, particularly this month that we are in, is every bit like those two years. Heavy rain, cool, dull.

Well, it’s been overdue. I did say to my family and others that this summer may well be a bit of a disappointment earlier in the year. Apart from an average June (how it was the hottest, I’ll never quite know) this July has brought up sodden memories of that of 2007 and 2012. Really is turning out to be one to forget. Been a very poor year for plumes too.

25th July 2019 was the day. 38.7. But that had an isotherm of 22 maybe 23c at a push graze by the SE. We were rewarded also with a huge MCS go up the E coast out of France/Belgium which I managed to chase and partially intercept! This was from the Norfolk coast near Mundesley that night!

Not so sure. July 19th 2022 will take some beating. As much as climate change is making its presence known at the moment, to get all of those ingredients and timings again to achieve what we did a year ago today will be substantially challenging. 25c isotherm passing by at the hottest part of the day, with no sudden cloud and a continuous heat pump all day of SSE’lies was like a lottery in itself. A 1 in 100 or more event I would say.

Incredible to think that this time last year, we were seeing unprecedented scenes in the form of fires taking out houses in local villages around here, and witnessing the all time record falling in Lincolnshire of all places. It was a truly remarkable day and quite frightening. I’m sure the farmers and residents of the villages affected by fires will be a lot more content with today, rather than a year ago. As much as it was historical, it was downright frightening too. The wind was really quite strong, almost akin to what I experienced in Las Vegas! Just a hot hairdryer in your face.

Torrential shower with gin blue skies in the backdrop! Made for what looked like falling marbles.

I love the Southern German climate. Always lots of snow, warm weather and a variety of storms!

Very intense and monsoonal for around 5 minutes. Some of the quietest thunder I think I’ve ever heard though. Sounded like a roll of carpet or something being dragged along a path. This may be it for the day as the showers are losing their depth as we go through the afternoon.

Heavy shower now passing over, with very faint, weird thunder now occurring!

Just had a little local chase out! Some very heavy rain and awesome cloud scapes. Hunstanton and Heacham areas

Some impressive storms about today. Very surprised about the lacklustre risks today. The ingredients are and were certainly there for some severe wind gusts, hail and frequent lightning.

I’m getting increasingly interested in what tomorrow May hold. Quite a fair bit of speed shear especially in the E/SE tomorrow. Going to be interesting seeing what the forecasts are by the morning. Looks to me like an environment for a supercell and even a tornado. The CAPE looks to be there, overlapped by quite a screaming jet for the time of year.

Explosive development

Some reasonably good convection today! A highly sheared environment too, which is giving these cells some organisation. Meanwhile, those storms in France have gone absolutely nuts in terms of lightning activity. If only I had been flying back from Spain today.

Had I have flown back from Spain today, I would have been able to watch this materialise from The window. I managed to get a view of a few isolated cells over Switzerland yesterday from way back over in western France! Amazing how far you can see from a plane on a good clear day.

Hola from Espana! Looks exciting back at home. Currently 38c on the Costa Blanca! Valencia apparently had ice blocks in the form of hail flooding down the street the other day! Noticed all AcCas floating by, and CB’s in the distance, but nothing materialised here in Alicante. Saw some cumulus fields over the mountains earlier, but that looks to have all but gone. good luck back at home with chasing! I’m missing out!

Yep! As usual, I’ll be abroad when it all kicks off! The best I can hope for is sea breeze convergence over the Montgo massif or the Jalon valley just up from Alicante. Some high res models are showing some precip! I should no doubt see some impressive convection over the Pyrenees en route and on the way back probably too. Think that’s the best I can hope for. Good luck to those chasing this weekend back home!

Looks like a terrific storm. Northern Italy is storm capital of Europe without question. Every single spring and summer this area sees numerous beasts, both day and night!

8 years ago right now, many of us were absolutely loving life! Anticipating those deep distant rumbles and endless distant flashes to be then getting hammered by hail and epic CG’s, some turning night time to daylight for a split second.

Cracking little storm here with hail and a few strikes! Fair to say it was nothing compared to what was about to unfold on this night 8 years ago however. The best night storms of the last decade, the night of the 3rd/4th July 2015.

Nope the mainland! Alicante area. Hoping we may get something down there, although the models seem to be backing off the idea now and turning the oven on.

It’ll definitely happen, as I’m not in the country! Every blinking time!

Given that this was quite a low risk, we haven’t done too badly out of it. I’m sure this is the first time I’ve seen night lightning this year.