StormLoser

Judging by the progress of the system, it looks like the bulk of the "severe" weather forecast (i.e. rain) will be over the west country, with a tendency to decrease to a few heavy showers from around Basingstoke eastwards. An increasing slope of higher pressure and dryer airmasses to the east are going to knobble the system. We'll still get some, but not as much as the west by a long way. My barometer flattened out about an hour ago and it's not doing the "bottoms dropped out of the barometer, Jim!" thing. Hmph. Enjoy the show, folks!

Estofex has updated its forecast to move the Level 1 in the UK to a more distinct zone, with the threat being heavy rain mostly, before storms. The northern France coast webcams are showing some good lightning in the Channel - especially west of Le Havre.

I see Estofex has released a forecast for Friday 5:00am to Saturday 6:00am. They've chalked southernmost UK up for a level 1. Mostly for heavy rain. France may take the burden on the bad weather.

Here's our local storm from the back garden looking south east. I cant see it has topped out yet. But we've had two lightning incidents recorded from it.

After a hot, muggy dry day here in the baking hot plains of India, sorry Reigate, we actually just got a rumble of thunder from a tiny cell that popped up just south of the town. That was unexpected! Ah - Cableguy - you saw the cell!

Got a couple of weak cells heading into my area. Just north of Reigate. I heard some thunder but they don't look very electrified. In fact, they could be Redhill clippers! They might just miss me. Just waiting on their arrival now. Argh - missed me and collapsed, too. Pulse storms.

Thank you! Glad you're in the show, Ben!

But....where is he? He's based in Bristol but does not say where he is!

The little development north-west of us grew in 30 minutes and is dumping heavy rain on us in Reigate. Blue sky still around this baby cell!

Just had a small cell start and build a little south of my location. I watched it from the garden. It's drifting south east and might turn into something. But generally it appears too dry this far west of the active area. It wants to go, but hasn't the fuel. Oh - wait. Something starting up to the north-west of Reigate. Perhaps our area may be showing signs of developing now?

Hmm - activity seems to be to the east and north of Reigate. A week last Monday, it was immediately to the west of us! I'm watching with interest, but I wonder if we're going to be out of it today. Huge mass over Haverhill south of Cambridge.

Glad to report here in Reigate there is instability encroaching from the north and west. Cumulus towers beginning to form and go up. To the east and south still clear skies. Looks like the air mass is beginning to change here but it's also possible it may stall. Shall let you know.

Skies here in Reigate have cleared. Wall-to-wall sunshine. 38c in direct sunlight on the ground. Around 28 in shade. Plenty of energy here! I see we've got activity up north already.

Threshold? What - it has to be 45c before they issue an Amber Warning here?

Interesting forecast from Nick Finnis. The Met Office appears to be awake, too (surprisingly). However, Estofex remains silent. So...I don't want to get my hopes up for here yet, but it would be good to see some action At the moment the skies are clear in Reigate with a touch of high-level cloud building. We've had 32c the last couple of days, which is somehow different to the forecast 32c in the Met Office's Amber Warning area. Ermmm.... Happy hunting folks. I'll let you know how it progresses here in my stationary storm watching emporium.

I just received in my e-mail box a Met Office weather warning for thunderstorms in the south east. I checked the rain radar to see the small cluster of storms departing Sussex for the Channel. The MO are just a little late to the party, aren't they? Afternoon tea and scones more important!? Those of you who get the storms - enjoy!

Well, we have a sort of reverse Kent Clipper in progress! It looked potentially good here in Reigate up to around 1:00pm when it cleared from the north west. There's towering cumulus here and there. There's a kind of line forming NW to SE, and I wonder if the north end might drift south. It will be interesting to watch. But someone somewhere must be having a good storm under those echoes.

I doubt we'll be lucky in the SE, but there is some London-generated instability visible from our house. (Looking north.)

After an hour plus of general thundering it's finally gone quiet here in Reigate. Looking at the rain radar and animating it, this place is strangely almost the centre of stuff rotating around! Looking at the grey wet sky here, you'd never believe it. Could be more to come here?

I suppose I can't have two CZs for the price of one. Huh. Thanks for the update! Not my strength so nice to learn Thunder rumbling around the Reigate area still.

Is there a second CZ line building from Chelmsford to Sevenoaks??

My Reigate cell was active for a while. It's a wobbly squall line on the convergence and the activity is moving slowly from north-east to south-west down the line, while the convergence is holding position. It may drift NW eventually. I am not sure if it will back build. Not a lot of definition in the clouds - just grey and wet. A couple of nice CG strikes, one definitely a positive. (The one that would have woken our daughter up in her work place...).

Thunder heard in Reigate! A cell appears to have lofted very swiftly here. Heavy rain, too. I think that may be my first thunder of 2021. Shows what an awful year it has been for many of us! More flashes and rumbles - some quite sharp. Our kitten / cat (a year old) has never heard thunder before! Some nice cloud to ground now! I think one landed close to where our daughter is working. That would have woken her up!

Morning all! Flagging my abilities as being idiot-level, I still confess I'm rather sceptical of the MO's Yellow Warning today. For a start off the low centre seems to be way further north than they predicted and it seems very slack. I guess surface forcing will be a big factor. Of course, being inside a half-hearted low means we currently get grey skies and only a wee bit of sun here. Further, a lot of the activity remains around the perimeter which favours folks north of London and south-west UK much more than the Yellow forecasts. However, if that trough over France gets enough energy to limp this way things could get interesting. Happy hunting everyone. PS - thanks for mentioning TORRO, Alexisj9. I long gave up on them thinking they'd closed down! I just looked in on them and glad to see they are still going. Interesting forecast from them. Back on my bookmarks they go...

I see plenty of you are having a good time. Enjoy! My forecast for Reigate was spot on (small "toot" as I blow my own trumpet). On Friday I forecasted a high pressure slope to the south and east that I thought was under-represented in the general forecasts. Sure enough it was present today (Saturday) and dried everything out exactly as I expected. After this morning's bit of rain, we had a mix of sun and cloud for the day. There is nothing threatening now. As for the Met Office's seaweed-based forecast of heavy rain for this area after midnight tonight, it is already being sold off with discounted DFS sofas. Met Office. All that cash and what can they do? Hope tomorrow will bring me some luck.