Flash bang flash bang etc

TJS1998Tom I’ve heard some mention of rather large areas of MUCAPE which is basically ‘night energy’ for storms. Looking at all the other synoptics it would seem that you can’t rule out some active albeit discrete cells anywhere around the midlands as the night progresses, and well into tomo. That said I wouldn’t lose important sleep watching the horizon. It will *hopefully* wake you up if it happens

Funny how May has traditionally been the start of the season and last night’s storms literally waited until May 2nd to arrive

Looks like Saturday could be a good one for the SE corner of the SE corner of the SE

I accept forecasting isn’t an exact science but this experimental prediction is based on existing conditions so don’t immediately write it off as impossible

Okay I need an answer to this one important question: how low can this go? South of the M4?

Hate to dampen ppls hopes in the south but it’s highly likely we won’t have storms this evening. Don’t waste time watching the continent it’s not gonna happen.

Some shots. In fact the only really shareable ones. Photo 3 was one of a handful of visible bolts throughout the whole event but this particular one struck probably somewhere within a mile of my position and around 1 second after this photo a huge shotgun boom cracked out. It was scary ish but it was also amazing. edit: the video doesn’t show all the flashes. There were so many instantaneous elevated ones (of the flickering variety) but the camera just doesn’t pick them up IMG_4092.mov

As the number of flashes people estimated last night seems to keep growing, I’m going to officially update my guess to approximately 1,000,005 (the last 5 were once I got home) in all seriousness though I would say my first guess was wrong. There were at least 10 per minute at the very lowest end of the scale, and up to probably quite easily 50 at peak intensity. with some rudimentary maths: the storm lasted 3 hours(ish). So 60 x 3 is 180 minutes of action overall. an average of about 30 fpm (flashes per minute) 30 x 180 = 5400. I’m going to add another 600 to account for the quite exceptional duration of the peak intensity (and that there were multiple bouts of activity) and round it off to 6000. I think the poster who claimed well over 100,000 might need to check the filament in their bedroom striplight

Good storms. Elevated - only saw about 4 forks out of about probably 2000 flashes over 3 hours. Essentially it was backbuilding over our area. 7/10 I think - not exceptional and hampered by heavy rain. Not being able to see the lightning directly was a little bit frustrating but the intensity of it was pretty impressive When’s the next one?

Skies here are milky in a good way

Thought I’d share this as it’s pretty on point (for someone like me anyway) Chasers Pop.mp3

Hello everyone! just surfed a few redundant storm threads to get here - so one chase down and *potentially* another one tonight!

We are literally in the eye of this thing. Calm

What storm?

I’m spying potential for some fairly active electrical storms. My only questions are where and when. CAPE is apparently low (about 100 > 300 J/KG) which isn’t too much of an issue as a lot of that is low to the ground (Eagle mentioned this as 3CAPE) which means there is more potential than one would initially expect. But this is the U.K. so the timings and placements could vary wildly and I’m not open to speculation. In essence: an exciting night to come, for some! That said please take care if venturing outside and be aware that things could get very blustery

Pls stop starting new threads so frequently, I have to update all my links

Nothing here. Heavy autumn rain. Nowt special about it, unless you are a plant

Times like these I like to reassure myself by thinking how stressed I would be if there was a storm forecast for this evening

Just to add that the reversing is me reversing the video lol

A curious bit of backend action on the storm as it moved north east towards london FullSizeRender.MOV

My guess as to the next pulse epsom?

Not the most electrically active but proper bolts in there! the sky beforehand was really striated as well - 7/10 thunderstorm in October!

Storms breaking our quite generally along the central coastal areas and inland