Ben Sainsbury

Quite possibly but also, the thunderstorms at 06:00-12:00 will pose a risk to those travelling to work during rush hour etc. Whereas overnight thunderstorms pose much less of a risk to safety.

For similar setups like tomorrow night, elevated thunderstorms generally are most active across far SE UK (East Sussex/Kent). Therefore, I'd like to think you're in a pretty good position as it stands!

As it stands, I'd expect any lightning would be to the south and east of you and moving away all the time. Therefore, the risk of any lightning overhead is low but not nil.

They would be moving up from the south, so yes I think you might do quite well if all goes to plan. I'll have a think about whether it's worth chasing, but if I were Eastbourne would be a good shout.

18th May last year exceeded my expectations with regards to westward extent of lightning. I'd have to look for similarities between tomorrow night and this event.

Having a look at the models, tomorrow morning I have questions over how frequent on lightning will be. I'm expecting lightning to be relatively infrequent, but further S, say in the vicinity of IOW, (where instability is likely to be higher before fizzling out) there may be more frequent lightning for a time. Tomorrow night is the main show, albeit only for the SE/E England. My best guess for a good lightning show would anywhere NNE-E of Brighton. Sporadic lightning further west, but at this point the majority of lightning will always be within the high Theta-W airmass.

Significantly better set of 06z ensembles vs the previous 0z, 18z and 12z respectively. Hopefully this is a trend going forward, for those that chase hot weather charts!

A classic loaded gun scenario here. EC 0z also going for some big storms next Tuesday, but more in the form of some very active elevated thunderstorms rather than surface-based activity. In the models can keep trending in the right direction, we might have a number of opportunities.

Looking at the bigger picture, that's a really positive set of ensembles and around 15% or so, go warmer than the OP.

You're right, some of the forecasts are 'insignificant' but that is the nature of weather, more often than not the risk of a thunderstorm/lightning on any given day is going to be small/near-zero. I would actually encourage storm forecasts on insignificant days, as I admire the enthusiasm and they encourage conversation. Personally, if the limited risk days aren't of interest, then you don't have to read them. Some greater destabilisation looks to occur Friday night, but the warmest airmass is consistently being pushed further east, reducing the ceiling for big thunderstorms. Been very busy with work (as you might expect given the poor weather at the moment), but hopefully will have more time to have a greater look at Friday's risk.

EC 12z showing a very complex evolution next Sunday into Monday. The little disturbance prevents the Azores high from really building NE'wards across the UK, whereas the GFS produces a much cleaner evolution. It really wouldn't take much to send us into the furnace, but it's all up in the air at the moment.

You thought GFS & EC 12z were good... GFS 18z is on smoke. Would be a serious August heatwave. 20C at 850hPa skirting the south coast for at least a week from T186 and looks like it'll only get more extreme into fantasy land. A good spectacle, even if it is unrealistic.

On route to Stoke-on-Trent, then will go from there.

Haha, fair! Not surprised that models are having difficulty getting a good grasp tbh.

Uh, fortunately Alderc that AROME chart displayed is 07UTC which would correspond to 08BST. So we've got an hour yet for these developments to kick off Latest radar frame would suggest dark echoes developing S of IOW.

Based on tonights runs, after earlier elevated thunderstorms locally, I will be heading up to Stoke-on-Trent to position myself for the afternoon convection. Seems like Manchester/Liverpool is right in the firing line tomorrow. Regarding the elevated thunderstorms tomorrow morning, could be anyones guess who sees them; but favouring CS/SE England, into East Midlands/E Anglia at the moment.

UKV seems to come in-line a little with the AROME for the surface-based activity tomorrow afternoon, but keeps the widespread elevated activity during the morning. If UKV comes to fruition this could be one of the most active thunderstorm days in a while.

You're right, those that did have initiated a bit early. Maybe suggests atmosphere is a bit more unstable than initially thought? Purely speculating at this point.

How different it is to the other models, just 18 hours out.

AROME is VERY different to almost every other model, it's scary. AROME is my favourite convective model... Also chasing tomorrow, so I have no idea.

After a line of elevated showers/thunderstorms moves through Saturday morning across England, the UKV is going for good clearance with temperatures rising to mid-high 20s. These seemingly allow surface-based thunderstorms to develop across CS England/Midlands/E Wales, these appear to be in a moderately unstable environment coupled with strong-very strong deep layer shear. These do appear to be within the post-frontal environment which I feel is something I don't see particularly often? That saying, recipe is there for a few severe thunderstorms to develop yet again (possibly a supercell or two as well), the question is, will everything come together?

It's great to hear of all your experiences! For me personally, since a very young age I've always been fascinated by thunderstorms. Something about witnessing thunderstorms makes me feel alive. Overhead thunder has only scared me on a handful of occasions; that saying when I went chasing in the States earlier this year, those storms there were a different breed and scared me on another level.

Some impressive atmospheric profiles being modelled for Saturday, though I can't help but feel like it's very similar to what we had two weekends ago. That saying, I think already at this stage, somewhere is likely to see some active thunderstorms.

Yep, deep convection now. Also in York.

You’re right. Z & UTC are basically the same. So in the model 12Z/UTC would correspond to 13:00BST etc.