poseidon

Definite upward cloud growth west of here. Looking interesting.

19:31 to be exact.

Have to say, I thought today was a bit of a right-off for this location, caught just North of the squall line, copping persistent drizzle and zero lightning. But this evening it briefly went very dark, I looked out and saw low swirling scud coming over. As this cloud moved over it quickly formed into a rotating funnel - here's a pic as it moved away... And here's a couple of earlier pics of Mammatus on the back edge of the South Essex squall line:

It departed with a CG lightning and ground shaking thunder. Nice way to go out. Would have been ideal to chase [if we didn't have a lockdown] - very slow moving.

Quite a noisy storm in the end, but only occasional faint lighting flash. Still grumbling as it moves away..

Plenty of thunder here in Essex, haven't seen any lightning though.

Certainly more lively than I thought it'd be today. Unfortunately, they all seemed to just miss this area. Although, I can see the lightning from the cell just South of here. I considered driving up to Cambridge again but in the end couldn't be bothered. Did get a few pics though: Big gust front as line of heavy showers passed over: View of impressive thunderstorm tower SW of Cambridge: [Click the pic to view a large image]

Estofex forecast out...

Had a drive through Melbourn and on to Cambridge chasing the right moving supercell this afternoon. Quite a spectacular beast it was too with a threatening looking cloud structure that certainly looked like it could drop a funnel or tornado. Looking from the M11 roundabout towards Cambridge.... View towards Melbourn.... While driving through Meldreth I got a view of cloud descending from under the base while crossing the railway bridge and decided to follow it - it swept across the road at speed with torrential rain and gusty winds following. It was difficult to make out rotation so I'm presuming a downburst. but certainly quite interesting.... Radar grab ~5 minutes earlier. [Click on the pics to view the larger images]

Not sure I'd call it clear - temperature might be down but it's still as humid as hell.

Really big gusts here now

Wind really picking up here. Flashes and thunder now.

Still seeing odd distant CG forks from out east. Nice night for lightning watching.

Wonder what will happen to that area of storms.....

Cell passing over, from earlier this evening...

Another gust front over my back fields with bright flashes beyond, and wind really picking up at times. Bit gutted it's moved so far east though.

Can see a large distant gust front out east and constant flashing but too far to make out any lightning. Met Office still forecasting storms here at 2.00 am. Interesting

Disappointingly far east now. Sky looks really MCS like but lightning seems to have died a death round this way. Just had some big convective rain drops and it's absolutely sweltering. Essex temperatures and humidity over the last few years have been incredible. Car temperature gauge got up to 40 degs today!

Large anvil overhead..

More thunder now. Nice view of cloud formations atm.

Sky is now clouding over. Considerable upscale cloud growth to South and especially West where it looks ominous.

Just heard some rumbles, looked around the house west and there's CBs going up all over the place.

Finally had our first summer thunderstorm of the year this morning. Proper anvil and some nice structure with mammatus and towering boiling cumulus. No lightning visible just some rumbles of thunder. Still beggers can't be choosers - a terrible convective weather year around here so far. [main anvil off to left]

GFS has no significant storm risk until 7.00am tomorrow in my part of Essex.

First sferic in France.