Supacell

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.

Currently heading into Tamworth to use the M42 as a route south. So far looks similar to yesterday in the south, just an hour or two earlier.

It's sorted If you click on the 3 dots to the right of your name then you can select edit and change the post. I thought you could hide it but I think its only mods that can do that.

Two high risks from Dan in 3 days, that must be the first time ever. I am not working today and the risk zone looks on my doorstep and so I will be out and about again. My initial target area is going to be Leicestershire/Warwickshire. I will probably use the A42/M42 for easy access southwest, traffic permitting of course. I'm going to have a lot of footage to edit at this rate!

Well... what a day. Saw plenty of storms through the Midlands. I'm still out (near to Stoke) and just about to head home but did better than yesterday I think. This despite being stuck in traffic for two motorway accidents. To be fair, the second accident killed my chase. I was worried the first had before it even started. After attempting to intercept a storm heading westwards towards Lutterworth, I ended up stuck in traffic on the M1. The storm passed over as I sat in congestion and it produced rain and the odd big flash of lightning/bang of thunder. I couldn't see much as i was trapped in the car surrounded by lorries, and I felt an overwhelming sense of dread that this was the end of my day. Luckily the traffic cleared and the storms hadn't moved far. I then chased what was a rapidly developing line of storms along the M6 towards Coventry and then M42 southbound around Birmingham, taking in Solihull, Redditch and then onto the M5 northbound (cue second accident) through Birmingham. The fact they were slow moving meant I could get out and film ahead of them a bit before jumping back in the car to get ahead again. However, by the time I was free of the second accident the storms were moving away. I tried to catch them up on the M6 but to no avail. That was OK, it was my way home anyway. Much like yesterday the rain was torrential, big huge raindrops and accompanied by gusty winds. The storm heading near to Solihull had some very lively winds ahead of it. Most of the lightning was high based flashing again, but there were quite a lot of flashes and occasionally there was a big IC or CG with a loud bang of thunder. Whilst driving, some of the thunder was very loud. All in all, im satisfied with today. It was still flashing occasionally over Stoke up until about 10 minutes ago but the main action is now over Shropshire. Heading home now to sleep, then going to be doing it all again tomorrow!

Sounds like a plan

Think I'll go for the Leicestershire storm. Its heading my way so not far to drive.

Currently near to Chelmsley Wood and have to decide. M6 towards Leicester or M40 towards Banbury

I may be wrong but I think there is a convergence zone running along the red line. Which is somewhat east of where shown on most of the models.

Sferics now south of London

Quick development on the recent satellite to the east of London. I am thinking that area may be the breeding ground.

What to do? My initial plan was to head in the direction of Worcestershire/Herefordshire. However, overnight runs from some models bring the risk almost to my doorstep and so the long drive may be unnecessary. However, there are more models showing storms over the SW Midlands (pretty much all of them from what I can see). I think I will wait to see where the first initiation occurs. If it's to the west of London (as per ECM/Arome) then I'll head southwest, if it's to the north or east of London (as per UKV) then I will stay more local or even at home. Edit: There is also the pull of overnight activity around the West Country. If I do the SW Midlands I could potentially catch these afterwards.

Back home now after todays chase. It was a day of mixed emotion. At around 5.30pm I found myself torn between tracking a cell that was moving over Oswestry and away from me or a storm that was moving up towards Telford and likely to hit me head on. The Oswestry cell was closer, but the Telford cell was moving towards and not away from me. I obviously decided to choose the one that was coming to me. But at the point when I committed to intercepting that cell, the storm over Oswestry went mental. Unfortunately there was not a lot I could do about it now, it was too far away. So I headed down to the village of Shawbury where I parked up with the view of a dark sky to the south and almost continuous quiet grumbles. As I was watching a flash of lightning occurred behind me. It was from a cell that had formed just behind me to my north, but was moving away from where I was. I decided to watch the cell to my south some more, a decision I would probably regret. As the Telford storm came closer it became apparent that it was now heading more north than northwest, and was missing me. The winds were really picking up and there were occasional close flashes and rumbles, but I decided to head northwest towards Whitchurch in the hope if getting properly into it. Unfortunately I now found myself behind it. I say unfortunate because the roads were flooded and it was hard to keep a pace. The traffic was moving slowly due to flooding and at one point I was stuck behind a tractor for what seemed like ages (but was probably 3 minutes). On radar it looked like the storm had grown into a huge cell with the northern part now moving into Chester as I was driving under the southern part of it near Whitchurch. I seemed to be under the storm according to the radar and the rainfall but the lightning seemed quite feint and so not sure if it was a distance away or just quite high in the clouds. The rain was immense though and was accompanied by a gusty wind which was blowing twigs off the trees onto my car. No wonder the roads were awash! I then ended up taking a wrong turn and whilst I thought I was heading north towards Chester I was heading west towards Wrexham and away from the storm. By the time I realised, the storms had pushed too far away and I never caught them back up. I put it down to being hot and bothered, it wasn't a cool day and I don't have aircon. Anyhow, I'll probably be doing it all again tomorrow. Not had chance to look at charts or forecasts for a few hours but if things haven't changed from earlier then the SW Midlands may be a good shout.

Near to Whitchurch and can hear distant thunder moving away. A shower passed over and turned thundery as it moved off. My eye is to the south on that cell passing to the west of Brum. I'm in its path, providing it doesn't fizzle.