Fiona Robertson

"But it's only August..!" wailed the horse owner, who's trying to get as much grazing done on her fields before she has to bring them in and start forking out money for hay. Each year I expect to be able to keep them out until October before the ground is so saturated that they wreck the grazing. God help those hay/haylage/silage producers still to get forage cut. They need the ground to be firm enough for their heavy machinery to get in and out of the field. Last time this happened we had a serious hay/haylage shortage for horses at the tail end of winter. I had to buy in prepacked stuff from Europe, rather than our local farm-produced. Is it my imagination or has the tail-end of summer being increasing in wetness the last 10 years?

Oh, good grief! Just what we need. Worth keeping a close eye on this puppy.

Looks like things happening northeast of Kendal, west of Tebay near M6.

It was the warning for last night. I'm wondering if it was a first. And events have borne out that it was certainly warranted.

Can anyone recall any previous occasion where Scotland has had an amber warning for thunderstorms? I'm not talking about an amber for flooding from thunderstorms. IIRC, the wording was for the thunderstorms themselves.

Well that was quite a night in Scotland. After all of the excitement of the storm heading into Fife which I could see from west of Livi, I settled down and at about 4 am a storm formed right over the top of me. I had constant lightning from around 1 am until 4.30 am, well above 60 flashes a minute. Never seen anything like it in my life. And the rain that last one threw on me was incredible. I opened the front door and the porch was an inch deep in water within about a minute just from the gutters and the splashing from monstrous drops. I fell asleep aroud 4.30 am. I've just been ouside and it's so hot and humid. No idea of the temp and, quite frankly, don't care. It's so sticky. I got a video of the last one, but not checked it yet. If it's any good I'll upload later.

I'm in the central belt, I've just been out in the field watching the lightning from your weather and I've never seen anything like it in my life! The lightning detector is missing so much! At one point there must have been about 30 flashes per minute. Heard very little in the way of thunder, but what I could make out of the clouds during flashes, that thing is a monster! and at one point Edited to add - my son was out with me, he's 20. First he lit my way to the field, then offered me his jacket, he was so solicitious, taking care of mummy... and after about 2 minutes of non-stop lightning he bravely suggested what he called a tactical retreat "Please, mum, I don't like it!"

It's looking more organised now, been perusing current recon flight on cesium. It's a strange one.

I saw something about another pair of Atlantic lows doing the same dance and then merging as happened with Dennis, think they mentioned Wednesday, but I haven't seen any details.

Just had thundersnow!!

Year after year I ask peeps to explain a sting jet to me and they oblige. I think I understand it, then along comes another year and I realise I still don't get it. I've read articles, I've watched videos and animations, I've tried modelling it with string and Rizlas and my brain still doesn't manage to grasp it.

Gabrielle is back to tropical storm status and NOAA has her heading directly at us.

Useful live webcam. It's from Carolina Beach Fishing Pier, just south of Wilmington. http://surfchex.com/cams/carolina-beach-web-cam/

Link to Jupiter beach live webcam http://www.evsjupiter.com/

Don't go!!!! Must admit I watched that fake YT thing for about 3 hours before I cottoned on. Why peeps do that is beyond me.

Well, the first subtle clue was that it was labelled as archive footage, the second was that it was 1 hour long rather than an indefinite live stream, third was that the box selected at the bottom said "Hurricane Irma archive", which led me to hazard a guess that it was Hurricane Irma archive footage, fourthly the wind was blowing directly on shore which is the wrong direction for the current position of Dorian and fifthly, I'm familiar with those webcams cos I spend every hurricane season watching them (can never find 'em until someone links 'em though, cos I'm a technonumpty).

The Fort Lauderdale link given is archive footage of Hurricane Irma, not live. Live cam is here https://www.earthcam.com/usa/florida/lauderdalebythesea/?cam=windjammer

Lastest forecast broadcast on MSNBC has just said Dorian is gonna stall over Grand Bahama for the next 24-36 hours.

Thanks, wasn't sure of it was supposed to stick to WNW before the turn.

Dratted thing currently moving due west, was that forecast at all?

I'm following Mission 27 (Gulfstream), but apparently Mission 29 (Lockheed) is on its way to join in. Have you found how to get the data points? If not, gimme a shout.

I really hope this thing gets steered northwards soon. Observed track of eye has been WNW. Katrina had a much more NNW track and was west of Dorian's track before she took a ridiculous turn to the WSW, crossing Florida and entering the gulf. Can anyone remember the set up that steered Katrina?

I'm using this http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/recon.cgi?basin=al&mapping=cesium The graphic shows a reading taken from what appears to be inside the eye, but isn't prolly due to delay in updating image. I'm using the "infrared funktop hourly" layer. Flight path takes a jog due east of previous reading and it comes out at 179.5 mph, without the wee red asterisk which usually is used to denote suspect data.

Reading has come in from NE quadrant near eye wall, windspeed 179 mph.