Spikecollie

Crikey that's beautiful!

On a more sombre note, folks, four people were drowned and two are missing after a Municipal campsite flooded with vicious suddenness in Lamalou les Bains, Herault. There has been an orange alert there for days now and the rain just kept coming. The reports are very harrowing: http://www.lindependant.fr/2014/09/19/torrent-meurtrier-a-lamalou-les-bains,1931361.php It's exciting but deadly weather...

I've been teaching "Teamworking" in ESC Dijon in France to undergraduates and "Human Resource Management" to Masters students. It has been a fun but tiring week. I also do supply teaching in schools, and will be teaching English part time in a school in Limousin from the beginning of October. We seem to be getting less storm activity than you guys over here today, but there are big storms to my west around Chateauroux. Tomorrow looking good for northern France though - I'm heading back up to Paris and then back to the UK for a couple of weeks, until I come back to Dijon and Limousin for the next part of the two courses and the start of the English classes...

The rain here is insane in the last hour, the streets are flowing and I got soaked coming back from work. We had some weird flickering lightning at about 1000 and some booms of thunder, very disconcerting in the middle of my class

You have got one of the biggest cells in Europe right now!

That's what I asked earlier! I had a riot of a storm and so little on the sferics. Now we all know...

Crazy rain, constant lightning, booming thunder...bed now now

I'm heading that way, but I can't sleep through storms. I have an 0800 class tomorrow. I might need to shut the windows and pop a pill. It's such a pity to shut that beautiful lot out....

(on limited battery power so expect crash out anytime!) It's take me a while to understand Blitzortung, I think. Does it only record CG strikes, because during this and other storms there is far more lightning than ever recorded. I count thunder as the latter, because erm it is! Am I right?

Thunder to lift you off your seat...

A tremendous storm here in Dijon, frequent lightning, hail and deafening thunder...il s'arrive!

Torrents of rain starting...oohhh!

First rumble, that big storm centred around Beaune is heading my way...oh no! I have to be in class at 0800 tomorrow...

It always spooks me a bit in a hotel when the lights start flickering, I have a wind up torch (of course) which is well wound up but it's still spooky...and I'm supposed to be the rational psychologist among us! Brrrrr...

Lights are flickering here...activity about 20km away. Not sure it will make it here but tomorrow is our day...

They might not, but you've got enough support for your own "homegrowns"!

Holey moley, I haven't seen a lightning map like this for ages! I've got the sound on Blitzortung and it's like a bloomin' Geiger counter in a nuclear reactor. Everywhere except Bourgogne damn it!!! Still our hour will come tomorrow...enjoy what you have got and stay safe That's a storm as big as some of the current French ones in the south of the UK. Where is everyone who is underneath it?

The poor Belgians are really getting it! A storm 1/3 the size of the country...looks like fun and games in the Paris region too, if it's like this on Saturday up there I think even I might hide under my bed and not come out until Monday!

Sferics in the south of the UK again now...

Nothing here yet, but it's so hot and humid. 28c and the sun is in and out behind burgeoning clouds. I've just come back from the big out of town shopping centre and it was energy sapping just walking around. Ended up going into the McDo by the tram stop for an ice cold Sprite! The country's lighting up nicely on Blitzortung though...

Is it a dry storm then? Or are we looking in the wrong place?

Looks like you've got something happening near the IOW.

More to come hopefully, too! Some of the strongest storms are expected in northern and north western France today tomorrow and Saturday, the south of the UK at least should get home grown storms and imports...

Sferics just kicking off over here in France, some near but not too near me. An active little cell just North of Montpellier is worth watching for it's rainfall impact. It'll intensify day by day...enjoy! Still 26c by the way, and the beer was gooood - Pelforth for the initiated, and I had two...

Weird afternoon here. Just had some work to do after classes but I'm going out soon to have a beer and watch the clouds go by. 27c some altocumulus castellanus beginning to appear and some cirrus virga. Free day tomorrow to cloudspot and window shop!