A.J

The main reason that the showers are losing their intensity is that they are moving into some relatively stable air....We are in the immediate post frontal air mass and at the moment over the midlands there is little energy or instability...I would also hazard a guess that the moisture profiles are pretty saturated throughout the atmosphere dampening any convection

Flooding could become a major issue IMO simply due to the amount of rainfall forecasted in a short space of time to areas already having received copious rainfall over the past 7 days....Earlier I was driving along the A452 from Coleshill to Balsall Common and the stream/river near Stonebridge golf club looked ready to burst it's bank and flood the A452 given any more rainfall......I would imagine the Rivers Severn & Avon must be running very high at the moment Mid Wales at a guess, the source of the River Severn...a lot of rain is forecasted over the next 24 hours and it's got to go somewhere....Rather worrying for people in the flood plain areas of the Severn

Thanks for the link....explains everything now

Thanks for your (honest) replies folks...I'm reassured to see that it wasn't only me thinking it was total poppycock....lol....Perhaps bluearmy's post should be pinned as it would be a useful reminder for when the rampers come out of hibernation next winter ....anyhoos, eyes down for the 12z output.....

I remember certain winter rampers who would always say forget the 06z GFS output as it's about as much use as boobs on fish, especially it seemed when snowless output was shown...Now a cold, potentially wintry northerly is progged towards & in FI, are we supposed to take the exact opposite as the likely outcome? or is it simply a case of said rampers talking complete poppycock?

...just to add, in case my post has come over in the wrong light, I'm not having a pop Robbie, I think personally your enthusiasm is great, it's this 'coldest May' hyperbole, it's driving me nuts!...lol

Robbie, with due respect what charts are you viewing if you think that 'this place is going to explode' ??.....-10 or lower T850's don't get within 500 miles of any part of the UK at any stage in either GFS or ECM 12z outputs...Right out in the extreme FI of both runs there is just the chance of wintry showers on the Scottish mountains and that's just about it...The outlook in FI (which by it's very name is unlikely to verify) is for generally dry anticyclonic weather and cool, certainly not cold

If you're in Derbyshire then thunderstorms are highly unlikely I'm afraid....You're stuck under an old dying occluded front (as am I) which is dishing out generally light rain & drizzle with the odd heavier burst pepped up by the Peaks...The air mass in the Midlands is quite stable unfortunately

Drizzly crud currently....looks like it will remain damp throughout the day...Tomorrow doesn't look too bad but sunday could well end up a washout

same old same old...naff all for the West Midlands......where's the blunt knife?...I feel the need to slash my ankles!

and here we are, smack in the middle of a dry slot, going against the forecast and model outputs...thanks Mrs M. Nature.....you suck!

Even I'm starting to get a bit hacked off with how things have panned out...Holy smokes, what do we have to do to get some decent storm action?

torrential downpour here at the mo...impressive that these bands of showers are holding together and might well continue to do so throughout the night.....Tomorrow is looking good especially to the north west of the region with the potential for some potent thunderstorms in the afternoon

Ta very much! Alas, parts of the south east are getting lucky again at the expense of us .....Robbie, if you dare post at any stage over the evening that you have thunder & lightning, I shall act on behalf of all the long suffering Midlands & North West folk and drive down to London and throttle you!

That looks more like what appears on my monitor when my 6 month old daughter is let loose on my keyboard..lol.... Seriously though Robbie, what does it mean?......

What passed through the SW earlier Robbie was a trough to my eyes...looking at satellite imagery, FAX output & GFS modelling the LP seems to be where it should be more or less...The stuff off the Irish Sea is low cloud by the looks of things just spinning around the circulation...The actual center itself is off the north Cornish coast I believe

Robbie, The LP center is well to the sw of the Midlands, in fact it's off the cornish coast currently

Hmm.....an interesting downpour we just had...no lightning but quite a bit of rotation on it's eastern flank which passed just to my east...Wouldn't mind one of the severe weather team taking a look at the radar for that cell....

As I expected, the arc of showers edging slowly northwards into the midlands are getting well organized with some impressive radar echoes....Looking to my south, the line of anvil tops is most impressive, in fact I could go as far as to say that the shower/storm clouds to my south have the 'M&S 21 day matured fillet steak' look about them....i.e very beefy!

Sorry matey but I disagree, there's a nice line of showery rain gaining in intensity over the south midlands and it's got lots of energy and lift to tap into...Ahead of that band it's sunny so diurnal heating can be brought into the mix...add that to the converging surface winds & shear that's present... ...Mix together, pop in the oven & bake for 30 mins and some garnish, et voila, the perfect homegrown storm.. ...or of course it also end up a messy area of sludge

Very lucky indeed......the Maccy's drive through up here is crap, you only get a limp piece of lettuce in your chicken burger, at your place you get a whole garden allotment on your burger by the looks of things

For homegrown's it's worth looking towards the Bristol/Somerset/Gloucestershire area for development and areas to the north of this for tracking over the next couple of hours...Plenty of energy and lift in that area as well as surface convergence and some horizontal & vertical shear between the 1000hpa & 500hpa boundaries judging by current data...could be an interesting afternoon

'meh' would've won it hands down....lol the hi-res models have tonight's showers continuing until well after dark, followed by tomorrow morning's deluge and then the prospect of maybe some decent thunderstorms for many parts (hopefully the West Midlands!) for tomorrow afternoon into the evening

That cluster of showers over Birmingham seems to have set up shop there, they're not going anywhere in a hurry by the looks of things...It'll be interesting to see the NW rainfall accumulations for that area when they update

Why thank you!....lol Joking aside, yep, it's damn frustrating when storms seemingly vanish into thin air in our neck of the woods, but perhaps more than 3 words for a post might be a bit more constructive...a quick 'sod all here' doesn't really add to the discussion!