Supacell

Just had a picnic at Sutton Bank, thanks for the recommendations . This is the current view. Things building and its feeling very hot but with a nice breeze to cool it a bit (thanks to the fact I'm on a hill). Hopefully be seeing some storms soon. If necessary I can get east towards Helmsley and then Scarborough.

Made it to Ferrybridge so far and hot and sunny here, 27⁰c. Making the decision of northeast (M62) or north (A1).

I'll be heading out today. My current thinking is somewhere in East/North Yorkshire. Somewhere like York, Driffield or Pickering may be a good bet.

It really is racing through on the models. If it speeds up anymore than there will be no heat tomorrow and the 31⁰c being forecast for the southeast will be closer 21⁰c . As you said earlier though, we probably won't know until tomorrow when that cold front is coming through.

This is the worry. If the cold front goes through too early it will be a case of severe thunderstorms over the North Sea and near Continent. The slower it moves east, the better.

Another chase yesterday, that's my ninth storm chase this year which is a lot for this stage in June. The day was close to being somewhat of a failure. I had noticed cells trying to get going over the Peak District through the midday period and the striking thing was how slow moving they were. However, I felt the best chance would be a little east so I avoided getting drawn in by these and waited at home. Soon a cell sprung to life about 5 miles to my east over Ripley and so now I jumped in the car to began the afternoon chase. I quickly caught the cell up (it was almost stationary), and was now just to the east of Ripley and moving very slowly in the direction of Nottingham. There was a lot of standing water left behind, unsurprising considering how slow everything was moving. The thing the cell was lacking though was lightning. Even so I continued to follow it eastwards in the hope it would fire and by the time it reached Hucknall it did produce a couple of flashes that I saw from my car, but that was it. Even so I headed into Nottingham with the showers but the showers were now just heavy rain. It seemed like something was missing today and so made the decision to head home. As I checked the radar I did notice more robust developments on radar towards Lutterworth/Leicester but figured I'd never get there in time so put it out my mind. However, on seeing the sign for M1 south I couldn't resist and decided to just go for it! Whilst I was driving down the M1 I could see from the lightning detector that the storm was producing a serious amount of lightning. As I approached Junction 22 there were some threatening skies ahead (to the southeast) and this was the point I turned off and onto the A50 eastbound. Annoyingly the cell had died somewhat by the time i'd made the 50 minute journey to catch it up, but lightning was still being detected in it and so I stuck with it and eventually came to rest not far from Syston/Barkby where I had a view of a nicely structured storm cloud producing some feint flashes. I couldn't hear the thunder over the wind, so it wasn't particularly loud at this point. It appeared to be moving slowly towards me. Actually, the core of the storm was heading a little further south than me and so I moved south a little to stop near to Beeby. By now the lightning was more vivid, the thunder much louder and I even saw a couple of bolts (one of which I definitely caught on camera). It wasn't long before the rain set in though and it was torrential with huge 50p sized raindrops, so it was a case of running for the cover of my car. For the next hour I drove around, stopping, getting out to observe and then driving again to avoid the rain. The storm was pulsing up and down but eventually pulsed out completely where I was, whilst intensifying to my east in the direction of Oakham and on into Stamford. I decided to abandon the storm I was in and headed east, driving on very wet roads. As I approached Stamford the skies ahead were very dark and soon I was under a torrential downpour with winds and flashes of lightning. A huge CG bolt hit just to the side of the car and the thunder was like an explosion, if only it had been out of my front windscreen. The roads were quite badly flooded as I drove into Stamford and as I drove through the town there were numerous flashes of lightning and lots of rain. I ended up parked near to the village of Barnack to the east of the town but by now the lightning activity had died out completely. I didn't deem it necessary to chase any further and so headed home with roads still flooded as I drove back through Stamford the other way. Considering the slow start in April and early May, things have really turned around and June 2023 is almost as good as the June's of 2020 and 2016 for my storm chases (with a whole week left to go). If Sunday comes off then June 2023 will go down as my best June ever

Some showers to the west of Belper/Derby that seem to be struggling to turn thundery, although the odd sferic detected over the nearby hills. They are moving very slowly though. I think I could probably walk faster! If they turn thundery then won't be difficult keeping up with them.

Needless to say, if Sunday happens as shown I'll be out chasing again, for the third consecutive Sunday. So much water under the bridge before then though, we know how much can go wrong. We also know how sometimes things go right.

Nothing very exciting T+L wise for me today. Saw one flash of lightning as I was driving but that's it. However some absolutely torrential rain and winds with visibility very much reduced. Lots of flooding on the roads too and some nice structure on the eastern side of the cells. Now I'm at Doncaster services contemplating the normally fairly ok drive home. Apparently two accidents and a vehicle fire between myself and home though, the vehicle fire having closed the M1. Going to be a fun trip back! #britishtraffic

Current view from near the M180/A15 junction. No sferics being detected but torrential rain and strong winds as I drove through it.

Yes, the bottom one was the UK. I was referring to Reed Timmers video of the hail on the top.

I can't compete with that. I'd imagine it's a whole different ballgame chasing in the States. I bet they don't get excited over a flash of lightning like I do.

Following the two storms I saw early this morning and this afternoons offerings I am happy with today. A good day for storms, even it they are not as intense as expected. I'd planned on staying home but did get drawn out for a 'mini chase' and went eastwards through Heanor and towards Eastwood and the M1. There was some very intense rain near Langley Mill/Eastwood but no lightning seen, despite lightning on the detectors. I felt the cell had hope so I headed north up the M1, eventually stopping just northeast of Clay Cross near M1 J29 to watch the storm move in. It looked on the lightning detector like it had become quite active, however I only caught a couple of flashes and a few distant rumbles before it decided to die out. With that I had planned to home as didnt want to miss anything but ended up stuck in an accident (again!) on the M1. Luckily I just got back home in time (literally within 2-3 minutes) to catch a storm as it passed over, or at least close to, my home. Whilst I was out chasing my footage from last Monday was left uploading to YouTube. Here it is if anyone wants to watch it, seeing as last Monday is old news now It has been nice for the storms to come to me for a change. I wonder if the cells south of Brum can turn electrical and make it 5 storms in a day.

Some nice thunder and lightning over Belper.

I'm probably going to stay local today for the main reason that I think I may actually be in a pretty favourable area.

Another little storm just passed over. Not as active as the earlier one but a couple of CGs, about 5 flashes and some torrential rain with huge raindrops.

Indeed a nice little storm just moved through with occasional lightning, a couple of CGs and decent thunder. I think the heaviest part passed just to my west and headed up over Matlock way. Heading your way now Now just plain old rain.

I will get a better idea of specifics with the high res models in the morning, but for now it looks like thunderstorms developing tomorrow afternoon across a wide area of England and Wales, moving north and upscaling into an area of thundery rain for the evening. In my experience once that happens chasing will be pointless as it'll essentially be a mass of heavy rain with embedded thunderstorms. This isn't the best set up to chase. For me there is a sweet spot when the thunderstorms first develop to where they congeal. It'll probably change by morning but someone earlier mentioned Cambs/Lincs and I think this is a good bet. From where I live I'd probably be heading in the direction of Grantham/Stamford. However, before we get there I may get to see a storm tonight if AROME and UKV are correct and it's feasible I may be chasing in the local area overnight. Just to add, tomorrow's storms look to be benefit from wind shear and with the predicted CAPE there could be some very active storms, possibly severe storms.

My second video from the weekend, taken on Sunday where I was around the Midlands. Its taken a while to edit due to work commitments and the fact there was quite a lot of footage to edit. Next up is Monday's chase.

Thank you. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my videos so that's good to hear . I always have to have my video camera. Phones nowadays can shoot some great videos but I'm a bit old school. And as you say, the phone practically does everything else (radar, lightning detector, sat nav, keeping up to date with posts/obs on Netweather). I have a video library all the way back to 2004, but the quality of them is shocking compared to those in 2023.

So here is the first of the three videos I will be editing and uploading. Personally not my best chase, I messed up a bit and firstly wasn't in the best position, then took a wrong turn and that pretty much screwed me. I had a bit better luck on the following two days.

As I was driving through it there were areas that were dry amongst areas that were flooded. Individual storms were quite localised amongst the large mass of storms. To me it seemed like the system wasn't an organised cell it was lots of smaller cells pulsing up (some briefly becoming severe) before collapsing and then new cells forming in the previous cells outflow. This made it a little harder to know where to position. If there had been some shear yesterday then I reckon there would have been at least a couple of organised severe storms/supercells. The outflow was expanding out quite a distance from the storms. The same was true on Sunday, with strong winds fanning miles out from the storms.

Thank you. The rain was absolutely torrential under these things so not surprised by the flooding.

Another chase day yesterday with a high risk of storms expected. Started off heading down to Tamworth, or just south of there, with the idea that the M42 would provide a good north to south road for me to intercept storms moving westwards if and when they developed. I could see storms on the radar, and they were going to head to my south towards Coventry area but there were also new developments further north heading towards Nottinghamshire. I was torn between whether to stay put, head south or head north. In the end I decided to head north as it looked like storms could possibly hit closer to home. Joining the M1 at J23A I could see a jet black sky to my north and very soon I was driving into what looked like a strong thunderstorm. Indeed it was, flashes of lightning, torrential rain, 1-2cm hail and all this being slammed against my car by driving winds. All this was in the vicinity of East Midlands Airport. As I knew the storm was travelling westwards I decided to join the A50 and head west in the hope to get ahead of it and get out the car for a bit. I overtook the storm and stopped off at the Derby/Burton services at the A50/A38 junction. Around here there was a brief period of gusty winds and large hail (2cm) as the storm approached but as it moved over the hailstones disappeared and it transitioned to torrential rain but still with some impressive gusts of wind and the rain really was torrential. There were lots of flashes of lightning, but they seemed mainly high based with the thunder not being particularly loud until after the storm was moving away. It is quite possible that the lightning and thunder was being somewhat muted by the intensity of the rain and wind. After watching the storm pass over I decided to chase it again, but by now it had pushed further west than I had anticipated. Even so I headed down the A50 and, noticing flashes to my south, I came off at Uttoxeter and headed towards Stafford/Stone. Unfortunately I never managed to catch the storm back up enough to overtake it again, I was instead driving just to its back end and was as such seeing lightning ahead of me but heaving to navigate flooded roads. In Stone I ended up stuck in a traffic jam in what I thought was roadworks and was stuck there for a while. In actual fact it was flooding across the site of the roadworks with traffic cones and barriers strewn across the road, floating around in the floodwater. It was quite scary driving through as the floodwaters were deeper than I thought and I was having to avoid floating debris. Once through this flooding I could see that a number of tree branches were down and there was further flooding in parts. It was quite obvious to me that a severe thunderstorm had passed through Stone. For some strange reason I carried on trying to chase, this time heading towards Nantwich and Chester. I did eventually catch the rear of the storm up again, and by now it was producing some nice CG's and IC's but I was never going to get properly into it again, and subsequently it began to die out. At somewhere just outside Chester I decided to leave it and head home, stopping at Crewe for a quick McDonalds first. Ended up getting home about half 10 and just went straight to bed as was working on only 5 hours sleep, hence no update last night. A bit of a rest for storm chasing now for a few days, which works well as I have to edit and upload 3 days worth of footage as well as work. I am already looking out for the next opportunity but for now I am quite glad of the upcoming rest Edit: Belper itself was hit by a storm yesterday too, which is somewhat of a rarity. I did not get back to Belper though and if I had done, I probably wouldn't have chased the storm as chasing from home is hard due to busy traffic in Belper at that time on the one main road through the town.

I'm thinking that. Trying to track the direction of the storm. It may end up hitting Tamworth.