Harry

Cloud thinning in areas here at the moment.

Much more humid feeling today! Hardly surprising given the narrow air temperature-dew point spread. Could be an interesting day, even if there aren’t sparks, this stuffy air is going to get wrung out like a sponge.

Can see the lightning from the France/Belgium storms

Was eating dinner - bugger!

I had a good view of that developing line across E/S London driving back from a class and to my eye there’s not enough oomph or height in the developing cells to generate much if any lightning. Yes there’s enough moisture to drop a good localised downpour but I’m not convinced there’ll be much sparks…would love to be wrong though

In Beckenham? The cell that was developing here and since moved off has now turned thundery - nothing heard here

RAIN!!!! We have rain drops - big rain drops - very elevated though and not looking like it will develop into something more (sadly!!!) But feeling cold spots of rain is amazing!

Nice to see some storms firing across the SW...look quite punchy too! Quite a bit of cloud bubbling up and feeling increasingly oppressive!

Feels a little more humid today and there are pleasing signs in the sky. Haven’t seen these pups for some time

Another flying ant day disgusting! Shame it’s not preceding thunderstorms down our way, although increasingly hopeful for tomorrow

We had a level 3 for an extremely deep low pressure (was it Eunice??) but I don’t think we’ve ever had a level 3 for thunderstorms

My weather app is showing 50% risk of dry/elevated storms for the SE tomorrow. If any storms are elevated and produce little rain, this could potentially present an unusual fire risk for the UK I should think.

It is also looking, particularly from the second half of the weekend, much more humid feeling than other heatwaves this year

The last meaningful rain I can recall were overnight storms on the 18 June - it has been an amazingly dry summer so far!

This is not good, Benny Boy @Ben Sainsbury. We need some serious deluges across the south (I suspect the same down your way). Lake District doesn’t need it (I’m guessing).

The 40C is, in my opinion, definitely (and obviously) due to climate change. The blocked ‘same old’ weather pattern is not however, but a product of La Niña. In my relatively short life, La Niña cycles tend to be poor for storms in the UK where as El Niño cycles tend to be far better, as we tend to experience more transient weather patterns - ie cooler air replaced with warm and humid, back to cool, and so on.

Agreed @East_England_Stormchaser91 2007-2012 was appalling down my way for storms. It was so bad I wondered if we’d ever see a decent storm again. Then in 2013 we had an amazing year of storms - one of my photos was used by the BBC - which was an amazing anvil crawler over holiday caravans down in Dymchurch. I think I’m right in saying that period was dominated by La Niña, a bit like the current time, although thankfully we’ve not experienced a storm drought like that this time round. We certainly need this dry spell to end soon - it looks far more like Portugal than Kent/SE London all around, that’s for sure. And apparently from Chris Fawkes, it could be AT LEAST 2 weeks until we see any meaningful rain. The last time I saw anything like this was in 1996 (I think) when my brother and I had to get water from bowsers placed down our road because the taps had been turned off

Those storms are meant to swing eastwards with time, although the MUCAPE chart @Nick F posted earlier suggests instability could be a bit more widespread than other models have suggested. I would say based on observations risk is <30% for the London region....hoping I'm wrong

The Channel is getting a good watering at the moment - shame about my garden Hopefully those storms may just about creep north enough to affect my area, but I'm fully expecting them (certainly any thundery activity) to stay to my south and east.

Most models suggest lightning potential for southern/southeastern coastal areas mainly before appearing to hit a fairly strong westerly flow and shunting almost due east across N France/Belgium as a fairly strong looking MCS type feature. I think there could be some heavy outbreaks of rain (been humid feeling again today) across a broader area but lightning much more limited in coverage than the precipitation indicated on models. PJB on UKWW pitching a fairly wide area of the thundery showers over much of C/W UK.

Tower trying to form here - favourable conditions beginning to move in

Given that raging cell near Northampton isn’t sparking, I’m feeling a bit dispondent

Usually when I see comments like this, I think "well we've earned it having had to suffer the heat and humidity"...certainly not this time! I had hoped there'd be some fairly widespread showers/storms, but apparently not . I did come on here to comment that, despite the storm forecasts from @Nick F and @staplehurst, it does seem to be a little bit sluggish getting going today. BUT, having pulled my finger out and been a lot less lazy (well done, me ) all models do not show any notable CAPE building until around 14:00 this afternoon, initially across the W/Midlands, then transferring S and E through the afternoon and night. Peak CAPE for London/Kent not arriving until late afternoon/evening.

It’s now dark enough it’s lighting up the sky with rumbles of thunder. Bosch - awesome!

Just had a huge flash and a decent rumble - followed by two other more distant rumbles - make that 3