alr1970

NW Radar is showing recent strikes in Lincolnshire are already this morning.

I do...and I am...La Plagne for a week from Saturday, looks very encouraging.

Drizzling here now, but I got this shot earlier: No filters needed in Manchester: the city with eclipse glasses built in!

It's complicated

Tiny traces of drizzle in the air here, nothing more. A breeze though, that's more weather than we've had for a few days.

Remarkably, the temperature at Manchester airport hasn't changed by more than a degree for almost 24 hours.

I haven't seen this posted before: weather stations with webcams across Cumbria: http://www.cumbriacc.gov.uk/roads-transport/WeatherStations/default.asp Looking good at A686 Hartside right now!

After snizzle yesterday evening, sleet/rain overnight and light sleet this morning, we are currently getting a respectable fall of the biggest snowflakes I've seen in years. The biggest must be 3cms wide.

Light snow here, and a big problem: the streetlight outside my house has chosen today to break down.

Saturday's wind warning has been removed for here now. Is that 'cos it's not going to be that bad, or are they crafting an apocalyptic replacement as I type?

After another frosty start and fairly clear, it clouded over and is now quite foggy at the bottom of the Manchester basin. Visibility in Trafford Park less than 200m.

Huge anvils coming over here now. Expect a brief hail shower then back to sunshine.

Every time I look out the window the weather's different: rain, sun, sun & rain, windy, very windy. No hail or thunder yet but the power just dipped - very unusual in Trafford Park.

Vile weather here to day, been raining since breakfast and it's now just 7.5 C.

I can see that cell from Manchester: the anvil top is smeared out over at least 45 degrees of the horizon.

Same here, conditions are nowhere near what was forecast in terms of heat. 22 as opposed to 27/28. Thoroughly overcast, though it was sunnier at lunchtime and the satellite shows clearer skies not too far off. Not expecting any storms, this is Manchester after all, maybe some light rain tomorrow. It's a shame, cos my garden is getting quite dried up.

Marvellous agreement on warm conditions up here out to this time next week:

You're making sense, yes, but moist air is actually less dense than dry air. Did you do physics at school? Do you remember the Ideal Gas Law? It states that PV=nRT, where P is pressure, V is volume, n is the nuber of molecules, R is a constant and T is the temperature, Kelvin. Amonst other things, it explains why the temperature of a gas increases when you compress it. In the case of dry/moist air, it means that at the same pressure and temperature, you get the same number of molecules in a fixed volume, regardless of what exact molecule they are. So an oxygen molecule takes the same amount of space as a nitrogen molecule, or a water molecule. The relative weights of molecules can be calculated from the sum of atomic weights of their constituent atoms: Oxygen, O2, is 2x16=32 Nitrogen, N2, is 2x14=28 (no significant difference so they mix freely in the atmosphere) Carbon dioxide, CO2, is 6+2x8=38 (significantly heavier so it can accululate in low places if emitted in sufficient quantities, such as from a volcano) Hydrogen, H2, is just 1x2=2 Helium, He, is just 4, which explains why you can float things with them And finally, water H2O, is 1x2+8=10 So if you can replace some of the oxygen and nitrogen with water, the density drops and it will bob up. I can't find exact numbers, but I think 1m3 of 100% huimid air contains about 30g of water at 30C, about 2.5% of the total mass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_of_air#Humidity_.28water_vapor.29 might help explain some of this.

Shower approaching Manchester from the north. Not very intense on the radar but I suppose it might intensify over the urban heat island.

It's remarkable that there is so much wind and rain noise, enough to drown out the thunder entirely.

A beautiful day in Manchester, lovely cloud formations to look at. NE from Trafford park: and looking towards Warrington, some anvils visible:

It certainly did. The one developing just NE of Manchester will ikely do the same, judging from the spectacular clouds I can see in that direction. Skipton watch out!

If it's the day I'm thinking of, I had bruises from the 30mm hail. I was living in Cambridgeshire at the time and got to cycle home from work in it. The days leading up to the storms had temps up to 30C in that area, unlike thus plume.

Half an hour of heavy but not torrential rain here. I heard one distant rumble on the approach but all the electrical activity has died in it now. All stopped now.