Harry

About to head home, but here in Hempstead (near Gillingham) the southern sky does look thundery. Alas nothing on blitzortung from this local mass.

Nothing on blitzortung - just goes to show why you shouldn’t rely too much on lightning detectors

Looking quite unpredictable to me as to where cells might pop up. Lots of Ac in the sky here now - first time today we’ve had a vaguely clearish sky. Good luck everyone

The dross of that MCS is heading in my direction - bloody typical! Hopefully the cruddy western edge will evaporate and I’ll get to see some lightning to my west…probably asking a bit much but hey ho!

Some of the concerns about the MCS sapping up all the energy maybe misplaced - looks like fresh cells firing behind the MCS

Loving the latest ARPEGE and WRF NMM MUCAPE charts for tonight - keen on a decent swathe of 500 up to 1,000 J/Kg. Edit - this is for London and SE - NMM being more generous of two.

Congrats @tomp456 for spelling ‘pop’ correctly

I spotted that and giggled…I’m 35

Looks like new cells possibly (and quickly) developing to the west of the MCS - which is potentially good news

My inner pedant just piping up - CAPE is important in the mid levels if the storms have a chance of sustaining electrical activity - surfaced based CAPE as rightly say is not necessary if the storms can sustain in the mid levels away from the surface. Most models have been showing a few hours of mid level CAPE across the SE overnight - but whether we get the non-electrified rain from ongoing storms and the electricity stays on the eastern side (following the moderate zone on the Convective Weather forecast) remains to be seen. Also worth noting the storms over NW France may not be only storms - more could fire along the line of the trough that’s expected to swing up through the evening and overnight - but it must be stressed most CAPE is towards the SE

NW France kicking off now

It has however boosted CAPE on the approaches to the SW - over 500 close to the coast at midnight. Precipitation looks impressive though.

While the precip projections for tomorrow night are improved, the MLCAPE is still very very weak (in fact, almost non-existent). I am therefore struggling to see how we might expect to see much, if any, lightning. On the plus side, however, Sunday night into Monday is looking good for southern areas.

Would love to be wrong, but I am not seeing any meaningful instability at all for Saturday night/early Sunday. GFS and NMM are showing (at best!) LIs of 0 and maximum CAPE of about 100 in a small pocket over C/S England. In my experience, it really doesn't matter how glorious storms are over a CAPE rich C/NW France, if they move into an area of limited instability, the electrics die out almost instantaneously. I really do not see anything in the current charts to get even vaguely excited about for this time frame, sadly

Absolutely not - my advice is maybe 24 hours out, allow yourself to start getting excited....5 days out is a fool's game...been there far too many times

Got a band of light rain here at the moment (after earlier optimism when the sun came out). Definitely the most humid feeling day of the 'season' so far, so definitely more moisture to rise through the atmosphere as the upper levels cool this afternoon.

Cloud melting away here now with the sun coming through - hope it stays that way and the cloud doesn’t fill back in. First interesting day of the year though - good luck all.

Bravo on your forecast today @staplehurst - saw some tweeters favouring EA today but your slight risk so far is bang on the money

Not that I’m expecting anything today, it’s nice to feel warmth and see swathes of Ac overhead

Likewise @Purplepixii and @Southern Storm - very mild here too and feeling almost plume like. It’s the same temperature now as it was here at lunchtime yesterday under the blazing sun. Got a window open slightly just in case something develops my way, although model consensus is for the SE to stay largely dry with much of the rain outbreaks further west.

The evening could soon start to get a bit more interesting. Lightning picking up over BoB heading towards the Brest Peninsula. Strike earlier over the Midlands with the rash of downpours that (somewhat unexpectedly?) developed there.

That your anemometer in the foreground @Mapantz? Love it

Mini-squall just beginning to clear here now - saw quite a few flashes (all IC/CC) and had several rumbles (some without an obvious flash). Nice start to the 'storm season' - it was well into May before I had my first storm last year. Good times.

My colleague just reported thunder, lightning and hail in C.London, too (while I'm working from home - grrr!). Moving this way, so could get lucky and have my first thunder and lightning of the year - fingers crossed.

I was 11 months old during the 1987 storm - my parents said they'd never been so frightened in all their life. Sufficed to say I have no recollection. From my area, I think the red warning was totally justified. It is easily the strongest storm since the St Jude's Day storm, which I remember listening to in bed and the roar was phenomenal. I don't have data to compare Eunice with St Jude, but they certainly seemed comparable. Storms always seem different at night compared to the day, so I guess it'll be down to stats. Certainly sounds like the worst of the wind has finally subsided, which is great news.