ChannelThunder

Out chasing now, lots of flashes both to NW and S

What could go wrong from here?

Must be some view in Jersey right now; so many storms surrounding it

I've got Afton Down kind of blocking my view, but I doubt I'd see anything over a few distant flashes currently either way. If it's still this strong in an hour, I'll be heading to the cliffs to watch

This is painful watching those CI storms edge ever slightly closer with each radar frame!

This afternoon I wanted the storms to slow down, but now I want them to hurry up. Be careful what you wish for, I guess!

Interestingly, the movement of the storm to the SW of Guernsey is NW currently, against the direction of the others around it. I guess it could be riding an outflow boundary. In any case, it's about to merge with the Lannion one and probably move NNE with that lot!

Am I being overly optimistic, or are the cells from Cherbourg to Lannion trying to organise into a line?

Come on little storm, reach for that distant island you can see

There's only one thing I'm interested in, and that's catching Kent Clipp---..I mean, bent coppers

Portsdown Hill Road has a great view over Pompey and the east Wight, I watched 2019's plume from there. It draws the crowds though...

New cell to the west of main Guernsey one, more on the French coast, and that line of towers I keep mentioning looks very encouraging. Today's been a rollercoaster of thinking Kent Clipper or whole SE clipper, but now there's 'hope' for the latter.

They're the fellas I can see from here! Looking great in the sunset.

There's a really nice training line of towers on the western horizon - I wonder if it's associated with the downpour that's come in over @Mapantz's area EDIT: ignore me, map-based fail - the showers are further west than Wareham!

Fine margins on the Guernsey cell - if it was just 10 miles to the west I'd be confident of a storm tonight. Radar looking encouraging for the SE I'd say, and the chunky congestus I mentioned to my NE can now be seen on the radar. I've lost sight of it thanks to yet more low cloud blowing around, which has been a constant today.

Gotta say, there's some pretty robust convection to my NE, over the Solent area.

If they're surface-based, the channel's always going to kill them as they've not got enough warmth to pump energy into them, although the warm seas from Sept-Dec can help sustain them longer than during the rest of the year. If they're elevated (which I suspect these were) then it'll just be case that they ran out of steam in this instance and would've died regardless of whether there was land or sea below. It's worth remembering that thunderstorms are short-lived by their very nature in the vast majority of cases.

Things have gone down the pan so much in the 47 mins since you posted that, that I'm back to thinking it's game over west of Eagle Eye's house...

It's been something of a mystery ever since I started following stormy weather! Don't tell the tinfoil hat brigade - they'll use it as evidence that the North Sea is home to some kind of HAARP machine or something...

...or does the complete opposite and die off, which it's doing right now!

I'll be lucky if it even clips Ventnor at this point

Need 'em all to slow down just a tiny bit! Got a roast to cook, and the sun doesn't set for another 3 hrs 15 mins!

The storms have made a nice line for me already, I just extended it.

Direction of travel on the imports would seem to put them between here and Weymouth, but you can see them wanting to veer a little more eastwards with time. Beggars can't be choosers, but if they could arrive just after sunset, that'd be ideal!

These storms are getting more organised, and they're not even modelled from what I can see. I'm going to plump for some positivity based on this and say I think it's a case of 'anything can happen' later on today: