Harry

Not entirely sure what to make of GFS' circa 1,000 J/Kg CAPE at 03z Wednesday morning....

Almost feel obliged to qualify my earlier post... @William Grimsley my point about people planning their life was not aimed at you specifically, which I had hoped would be clear from starting a new paragraph (but was evidently mistaken). Where I was directing at you was the flip comment about there having to be inaccuracies in the models - I was highlighting that it is entirely possible they are more or less correct and recent years will and do attest to that possibility. It is an exciting period coming up and I do not wish to poop any parties - but equally I dread reading the doomsday "where are my storms" posts which are now all too common.

Why on earth would you put it down to inaccuracy? The Azores High is a notorious bit of a kit at suppressing thunderstorm activity - furthermore, if there's no trigger, all that juice will not materialise. Can I not cast your minds back to El Brummo when the SE baked in 33C and obscene humidity (with as much convective juice, if not more, than those areas which saw widespread severe storms) but skies here remained clear all day - as correctly predicted by the major models including GFS. Or cast your minds back to July last year where the SE quarter erupted with widespread thunderstorms, while N France and Benelux saw nothing. In any event, planning your life around a plume breakdown 4 days in advance is madness....those charts will change considerably between now and then...as happens every single year

Pretty thunderous downpour here right now - no thunder, but rainfall quite intense.

Having just stepped outside, despite the breeze and the passing of a cold front over the weekend, still very warm feeling airmass outside and fairly humid. Suspect any downpours through this afternoon could be quite torrential. Remain unsure about coverage of any electrical activity.

Probably, activity really starting to ramp up now again

Much more northerly component to those cells moving up from the south now!!

Very bright flash and rumble just then...couldn't tell from which direction though

Can see a lot of flashes from the Tunbridge Wells storm - really quite active

Looks to me like a multi-cell cluster is beginning to organise over the Channel/N France and could be a shot at an MCS...running the radar back and forth it does appear to have an increasingly northern shunt to it.

Still seeing the odd bright flash outside my east facing bedroom window. New cells firing across Sussex/Kent and growing in intensity. Might have to get some shut eye soon and set an alarm for around 2 for a status update.

Just saw a flash, lol

Interesting...32 in a 16 year period...an average of 2 per year and in no doubt some years there would have been multiple. Just to put into perspective how rare these beasts are (further to the debate much earlier today)

New cell firing near Southampton, in addition to all the others over France

Very elevated in the end, some great flashes and bolts and a few good thunder peels. Nothing vaguely severe about it however. Although again would emphasise the peak instability hasn't even arrived yet.

I'm in Bexley...trying to keep up on here and an eye on the sky...every time I look skyward this moves on 20 posts lol

Not entirely sure this storm approaching me is completely elevated....alarmed by the green tinge to some of the Lightning (hail!!??) and the lightning and thunder growing really quite frequent now!!

Just seen my first few blues-green flashes to my S/SW and can here deep growls of thunder. Yaaaaay!!!

Attention all forum buddies...NW France starting to light up!!!!

@William Grimsley I threatened earlier and I will abide by it...melancholia, report to Mods We are only experiencing initial bursts currently, with all models kicking off most action in the coming hours, through tomorrow morning (occasional models). AJs observations are encouraging as every model I saw indicated the western extent of the plume being around IoW (some not even that far).

Just back to Bexley after having worked in Bedford all day (where by and large it was cloudy and miserable). Absolutely stunning cloudscapes in front of my eyes, with the Cb tops visible from Bedford. The site driving around the M25, huge anvils with manmatus lit fiery orange by the setting sun - just gutted I was driving and unable to photo it. Back to the action, so far pretty much to script, initial eruptions running off the Kent coast with some landfall. Can see the IoW anvil from here but activity over UK mainland appearing stunted currently. Important to note that instability is not modelled to arrive properly (and be at its most intense) until the early hours, despite the high humidity here now and my first sight of a flying stag beetle this year (high humidity evenings in May/June for peak stag beetle aviation). So far, any doubts expressed about the atmosphere's ability to fire should be well and truly cast aside. Now it's all about where that trough will move/develop and where it shall go, thunder will flow

Some may find this interesting from Meteociel website...note the area of amber compared to yellow.....

I have to emphasise that we should not just be looking for action to kick off over N France and growing disheartened if the Brest peninsula isn't lighting up like the 5th November...different models have suggested rapid development of thunderstorms over the Channel or indeed over the UK mainland, possibly well after sunset. Patience will most certainly be order of the day - so should anyone start posting doom and gloom melancholia, I shall be inclined to report you to the Feds, sorry, Mods Notwithstanding the ConvectiveWeather.co.uk noon update, over the past several hours the MetO precip forecast model has been slowly bringing outbreaks more N and W bit by bit, so still early days.

I know tell me about it

Interestingly, the latest FAX chart shows the warm sector staying in place beyond 00z Friday...this is a decent improvement on previous charts.