R Alto

First day since July not to reach above 21c here. 19.1c today.

Really dark anvil ahead of this storm and some nice blue/green tones amongst the cells as they were gathering to the South. A couple of CG's over the harbour and still have lightning coming down to the North of me and now the suns out!

The strata and waves in this storm are quite unlike anything I've seen before. In coming!

Wild stormy skies moving in!

Watching sheet lightning to my South/ South West.

Temperature today reached 30.3C equalling yesterday's and 18th July which makes me suspicious but probably just a coincidence. I saw the smoke drifting your way @Mapantz, looking from Whitecliff. At first I thought it was Brownsea, that would had been a disaster, thankfully not. Still not good though.

Bits that stick with me. Late June, sun high in the sky, deep blue, easterly wind and waiting, hoping for the smallest chance of tiny isolated popcorn storms that were trundling around the channel for a couple of days. Didn't see a dicky bird, barely a cloud, but the idea that there were some exotic weather anomalies just out there instilled some magic into the air. I'm not sure on the date, I want to say 11th or 13th July? I had been camping at shell bay in Dorset. I was up early, so probably around 6am. A stunning thunderstorm drifted up from the South. Wild cumulus congestus beneath cirro stratus, like something from a Picasso painting towered above the landscape in all their chaotic glory. A dark round anvil swallowed the sky above. Heavy warmish rain and cloud to ground strikes ensued. Great cure for a hangover. Lastly and probably most representative of that summer was that by mid August, the brown tinder dry leaves that had fallen early to join the equally pale dead grass beneath.

I first went to Florida in July '92 and as a burgeoning storm addict I was in heaven! Enjoy your storms fellow netweather nuts

A second, lighter storm moved in 20 minutes later. It suddenly felt very warm again just before the rain. Here's a screenshot from the first storm. Sun coming out now and feeling cooler.

Big, very elevated, twisted alto status sky moving in off the channel. Also distant booms of thunder and a CG just now to my West!

Overnight low of 21.2C, currently 27.7C at 8.45am!

28.5C in the Wallisdown area, close to the Uni.

Cracking mid level instability this evening. The atmosphere looks and feels different now that the plume pushes in.

Monday 18th, 39.4C, somewhere in London

They certainly are, turning purple, blue and red in the last half hour.

Like scattered sheep or paper. I imagine that the Latin for Floccus refers to sheep? Probably..

Delicate Alto Floccus mark the passage of another high summer day.

That's what I was thinking too. Here's a screenshot of one those bolts.

Just had a series (every 1 or 2 minutes) of some of the brightest and loudest cloud to ground I've ever witnessed.

That was the weirdest start to a storm. Uniform alto status (did not look exciting) and no darkening to the horizon. Very still, then pockets of lightning almost overhead for 5 minutes before any rain.

These towers just to the East of Poole have suddenly become electrified.

Fingers crossed. The Purbecks are slowly disappearing behind the rain from my vantage point...

Yes that's what I thought, as you say its been loud on the ranges today!

The gunning range on the Purbecks is giving me false aural returns! Not that I'm expecting anything.

Lightning every 2 or 3 seconds to my West and South West. Some long peals of thunder now too.