Crepuscular Ray

There's been near-continuous crackles of thunder here now for about 15 minutes after a slow build-up. No rain at all, though. Edit: It's raining and the thunder is getting louder and closer.

Hazed. Please put your location in your profile - gives the rest of us a clue about what the weather is like where you are. Here in west London, it's going bonkers. Almost continuous crackles of thunder.

It was unpleasantly humid today. Perhaps it's just in contrast to last week's need for thermals and I will adjust.

Nathan in the Express. I'll get my thermals back out of the cupboard, in that case.

At lunchtime Southern Railways were already warning of the risk of cancelled trains overnight and tomorrow. Presumably we are expecting the wrong sort of wind and rain.

Kakapo.

New method, as far as I can remember.

200 days by November is entirely probable. Do any of the theories about low solar min predict which is more likely out of cold and dry/cool and wet/cold and snowy? I know that the coldies on here love the idea of low sunspot activity in winter with the extrapolated threat of snow, but fail to understand why you're happy at the thought of low solar activity in spring/summer when that's supposed according to the same theory to produce cloud, clag, gloom, rain, muck, mizzle, drizzle and temperatures far below average.

Stansted has to be far worse than either LHR or Luton (not been to the latter in a long time but the former does at least have clean loos). That said, I'm flying to La Rochelle in a couple of weeks. Duty free there does't open until the beginning of May.

Why?

Not actually that much of an event in central London (apart from all the burst water mains that haven't yet been fixed) and notable chiefly for being in March. It would be interesting to see if knowledge about sudden stratospheric warming could explain in hindsight more notable cold periods that occurred before SSW was understood, for instance, early 1991 (-15 °C in Sussex overnight for several days) or even the winters of 2010-2013.

According to Spaceweather.com, 2009 did indeed have 260 days spotless, but that wasn't in an unbroken run. I do, however, agree with Yarmy and have to ask you to provide a link for your claim of NASA's October 2018-Aug 2019 forecast.

Hail formed on snow pellets. Got hailed on in July near Gatwick once.

Vanishingly rare?

I can't remember witnessing falling snow at 6C in any month.

Sustained wind speeds far higher than I was expecting from the forecast. No thunder.

The uppers are one thing; the temps at ground level will most likely preclude anything white falling in this region. John. Please could you add your location to your profile. Makes it much better for the rest of us to work out what's going one when you're reporting snow outside. Ta.

Agreed. It is ridiculous that for sustained wind speeds of 16 mph, and possible gusts of up to 41 mph (that in a very short window out of the episode, mostly it's predicted gusts of up to 31 mph), London is under a yellow weather warning for the next couple of days. Even sustained wind speeds of 31 mph shouldn't merit a shock horror warning.

I've not been on here for a while. Have there been any new scientific papers about any possible direct link between the solar cycle and temps in the British Isles. I'd be fascinated to see if there is an 11 / 22 year pattern relating directly to the solar cycle.

15.1 km down. Risk of surface damage is high in a fairly localised region according to the underlying geology

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40656624/phone-footage-shows-moment-lightning-storms-hit-uk "May contain flashing images".

Geography. Move to Norway, Canada or Nepal if you want winter white stuff.