Flash bang flash bang etc

South being left well alone this weekend from anything convective. Looking forward to a bit of a step up next week as it’s been a long, long time and a lot of forecasts have passed without verifying much more than a rumble or two (if we’ve been lucky). Nice to see the rain at last though - and good it’s consistent driving rain and nothing too torrential - good for the ground anyway. As usual it all happens once the real heat shifts - one thing and not the other. But seeing plants, grass and trees finally getting a soaking is great Trying not to feel to glum - and instead looking for the good in having no thunder at all for months on end. Something to do with a good nitrogen balance, perhaps? Hmmmm. However, seeing the SSTs are going up now could mean we will see a late summer of storms blossom for these parts. Would be nice to have a few events too, and not just the obligatory one-off. I’ve found it helps to look at it this way: it really doesn’t need to be this stormless here - we just need the steering winds to be favourable and things will kick-off around these parts for sure - given enough energy and some forcing from the Atlantic or the continent. I put it down to a run of very bad convective luck - considering the whopping heat we’ve been seeing. Most frustrating thing of all is that I don’t even mind driving to see storms - so long as they aren’t always miles and miles and miles away (at the moment everything decent seems to happens north of a diagonal line from Gloucester to Kings Lynn, which even for beasts like the other day is a ridiculous drive for me). Maybe some decent active cells in Hampshire or Sussex, for a change? We’re spoiled around here - perfect vantage points dotted all over the county, but with nothing to watch they aren’t proving very useful at the moment. Meh. Off to Paris tomo for one night for a short work trip - Accuweather suggests some storm opportunities there, so maybe my presence won’t deter them from passing by... As always, expecting the worst but planning for the best... it’s coming home it’s coming home, thunder’s coming home! Now bring the hot stuff back so I can sit in the garden again, pleeeeeasse!!

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it’s a total joke when we get all this shear and potent fronts passing through just as all the exceptional heat has swiftly and quietly fizzled away after weeks and weeks and weeks of intense hot weather. Would have seen seen some amazing cloudscapes today too

Didn’t look intense at all really on the radar.

Can’t wait til next week : This cold wind will go - things will heat up again and then it will be our turn to get storms. Won’t be sharing them though - as soon as they reach Oxford or the Wash I want them to stop in their tracks - that lot everywhere else have had enough already. Fair’s fair

Form of shelter = ...pub?

Goes to show how misleading these strike charts can be sometimes. Especially when you consider it’s a combination of strikes for the whole day... You could locally have two sporadic cells with fairly isolated lightning occurring 12 hours apart - and it would appear to be a semi-decent one. Either way the North East got a great show. Again, a limitation of this kind of chart is that the density of lightning that occurred in the cells further north isn’t too obvious here.

Wow that reminds me of that storm they had couple of years back over Essen, Germany! Just imagine if there was more clear sky around the periphery and it was a touch later in the evening - from a distance that anvil lighting up would have been spectacular!

I’ve got to drive home now

The MCs isn’t all that from where I am. Flashes, but not particularly intense - maybe it’s the size of it and the density of the rain within?

Really hoping that MCs makes it - the CGs are very few and far between at the moment but beautiful when you see one

It was worth all the effort

Large dark grey blob moving across into the Solent - keep an eye on that I think it’s gonna set some storms off

https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/satellite/UK/UnitedKingdom/Infraredcolor/premium.htm this shows recent evolution quite nicely

Can see the huge storms building to the north. Quite a sight - though the haze is reducing clarity somewhat

I’m up near Haverhill looking for a good spot 33° at 3pm on the dot

I wasn’t disputing the potency of storms in the west, just that they rarely track at the required NEE angle (maybe even NEEE!) to gather the momentum to be real pearls when they get to central areas. We did get a beauty years back which come over from Wales / Gloucester area and that was a proper discrete cell but went on for about 2 hours

Is the London UHI gonna play a role in the development of severe characteristics with that storm in the channel, should it make it this far?

Get out of the water, quick!

Nice! looking forward to the 2nd half of summer - we are planning a holiday somewhere meditteranean and no more of this radar watching ‘10% chance of lightning or a drop of rain’ guff because they get storms there so regularly. Also SSTs are up so we have a window to steal storms from Europe like you say - the only chance we get! Just wondering - how come we rarely get storms tracking up from Cornwall / Dorset area? I guess it must be the winds rarely blow like that - but if we did surely storms would have plenty of hot land to feed off? Anyway, got myself to the NE corner of the M25 and now it’s time for lunch. Woooo!

There’s a chance the channel will stop em in their tracks as happened last night. They will pep up again on one but I guess this is why the warning area is north of London. hope you do get something out of it anyway though

In London itself? Depends which bit, but I would think anywhere south and/or west of the ‘Greater’ bit isn’t going to see much in the way of rain.

I’ve seen a lot of acas and small towers appearing and disappearing this morning. Think proper convection will start around about 3pm. There was talk of a lull in activity around midday. ...or was that May?

A balmy 29° in hackney - but with the aircon on I’ve forgotten how warm it is outside. Saw turkey towers earlier and they just evaporated to nothing in about 5 mins - was quite weird Skies are surprisingly clear

Unfortunate for those in central areas, but I think this is gonna be pretty spot on for later today. I’m ignoring the white box zone (liking the shade of yellow more) but wouldn’t rule out some sporadic cells popping up here and there. Don’t know how well this covers ongoing activity into tomo? I think the cutoff for this chart is 3am - there was chatter of more general thundery rain more centrally throughout the day tomo, albeit without the severe aspect Let’s see what happens...

Saw some acas float by earlier, but it’s practically cloudless in south London now with some pretty cumulus here and there. 27° and not feeling as close as it was yesterday. Despite chances for some sort of conveyor-style system in central southern areas later on I’m gonna try and get over to EA later and see if I can get in on the action. Thing is I used all my chase points last night so need to see if the O/H doesn’t mind another evening in on her own tonight...