maidstone weather

Only snow since October here was the 23rd November (Sunday) during the morning, about 1cm accumulated in an hour, then melted as the snow turned to rain and washed it away . Never got any in October, nor this morning either

i would imagine 100% would be used nearer the time if the conditions were favourable, similar to today's pattern i would guess Glad to see the forecasts heading in the right direction though, looking good.

to my knowledge, most if not all of the forecasts Stuart has posted here has generally said there is a less than 50% chance of a White Christmas so far? Looking back through the various forecasts, they are all generally along the lines of wet and cool - surely that's sticking to it for the last 2 and a half months? I think it's great that Stuart regularly updates us with updated forecasts from different organisations, i enjoy reading them. Keep up the good work Stuart

metcheck has said the same thing for Kent (10%) for the last 2 months, and coincidentally the same thing for West Sussex (30%). My guess is they haven't bothered updating yet and won't probably update it until Christmas Day appears in the GFS model? :lol:

2005 was a fantastic year for snow. We had snow from the evening of the 26th right until 30th December.

It wasn't directed at you personally, just your initial comment after Stuart's post was a typical one that follows every Sunday. What I'm trying to say is it seems a lot of work and thought goes into creating these forecasts. Yes they may be wrong in the long run, but at the moment at least the organisations are having a go at forecasting. As i said before every Sunday i read comments that question the accuracy of these forecasts 3 months before the date. Once again i read that forecasts this early are thought to be less than 40% accurate. Creating them in September I believe is part of the "fun" of the run-up to Christmas. A white Christmas gets many people excited, which is probably why these organisations try to forecast at an early stage. They let us see how the conditions change each week. Obviously as we get closer and closer to Christmas they will in time get more accurate. But simply, don't take them too literally at this early stage, which is what many seem to do. With regards to Michael Fish, I am simply pointing out that people criticise more than praise forecasts, and it is the mistakes that are often remembered more. That is just human nature. I give thumbs-up to these organisations for actually participating in forecasting this event. It's always interesting to read the discussion on here of the possibilites of a White Christmas, and whilst i encourage these posts It does get annoying after a while when there are duplicate posts every Sunday about how accurate the forecasts are at this stage. They give a rough idea, not a detailed, accurate forecast. The last sentence was referring to general comments made each Sunday. If people don't like the forecasts issued at this early stage then the simple answer to that is don't bother reading them. I hope that clarifies a few things. Regards.

I agree with Blizzards on this one - i read this thread every week and once Stuart posts a forecast, regardless of the organisation (UKASF, TWO etc), there are always comments that follow that do nothing but moan about "how these organisations can predict 3 months in advance when the Met Office can't predict 3 days in advance", for example. In fact it gets quite boring reading these posts every Sunday. It seems there are some people that are always trying to find flaws and errors with the forecasts rather than praising the organisations for getting something right. A classic example is the Michael Fish error in 1987, this will always be associated with him because he might've got it wrong once. In this case i think we should be thanking these people for actually having a go at and spending time forecasting, rather than moaning about them. I once read somewhere on the net that forecasts this advance are expected to be less than 40% accurate. My beliefs are that these organisations (UKASF, TWO, etc) create these forecasts mainly for fun rather than for anything accurate at this stage. It's always interesting to see how the models/forecasts vary each week. With regards "every scenario covered by Mid December", i've had a look back through this thread and to me most if not all the forecasts posted are on a similar theme, mainly "cool and showery with a chance of snow in Scotland". This is one scenario. I am still yet to read one that states Christmas Day will be hot with a heatwave and warm southerly winds The basic thought is, if you don't like reading "hopeful" forecasts rather than "accurate" ones then don't both reading nor posting to this thread. Regards.

Notice there is no specific detail there though, such as "a band of rain will swing from the northwest by late morning". I think they just want to give a general overview of how it looks at the moment rather than any detailed forecast at this stage. Still, I hope we get to see a white Christmas :o

I remember a nice storm on Weds 13 Sept 2006. They were actually forecast by the BBC a couple of days before, and it was before I'd heard of netweather, estofex and blitzortung (and the likes) so i only used the met office radar. Anyway, the local BBC team were on a boat on Bewl Water Reservoir broadcasting live. They said that they could hear thunder getting louder near them (this was about 6.50pm). And sure enough a mamma of a storm moved in around 7.20pm over us in the Weald of Kent, and it didn't stop until 10pm! We had a 2 hour powercut from 7.45pm to around 9.45pm, so i just sat by the window and watched the whole event. Torrential rain flooded the roads in a matter of minutes, constant fork lightning, and a house round the corner was actually struck by lightning and the TV blew up!. In fact, i would say that storm was slightly better than the MCS on 6th/7th Aug that we had here this year!

The storm developed over the Isle of Wight, but intensified a lot close to West Wittering, West Sussex, and travelled northeastwards, affecting Horsham around 6.30pm in the evening. The storm produced a tornado, which also damaged a hangar at Gatwick Airport. The storm died later in the evening close to Maldon, Essex. The hail measured H6-H7 on TORRO's hail scale, meaning that the hail was 40-70mm in diameter which can cause severe damage to buildings and vehicles, especially roofs, and injuries to people. The actual storm smashed windows, dented cars, broke roof tiles and killed vegetation. To compare the hail size to an everyday object, the hail was roughly somewhere in between the size of a Hen's egg and a Cricket ball. One hailstone measured 191g! Some reports of the damage: The main Brighton line was completely blocked by a fall of chalk between Coulsdon North and Earlswood. Trains were diverted via Redhill, but were further delayed by a fallen tree on the line near Horley. Southend-on-Sea was cut off by rail from London. A spokesman of the Met Office at the Air Ministry said that at 7 p.m. a gust of 80 miles an hour was recorded in "a minor tornado" at Gatwick. A spokesman for the General Post Office said that reports of widespread damage to telephone cables had come in from all parts of London. Two fuel oil storage tanks at Kent Oil Refinery, Isle of Grain, were struck by lightning and burst into flames. 7,000 consumers in the Petworth area were without electricity. 3,000 lightning strikes were 'counted' during the storm as it passed over London.

2008 Summer Rainfall Totals (1 June - 26 August) Within the UK some local rainfall records have been broken, especially across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland where flooding severely affected road and rail transport. Provisional rainfall figures show that Northern Ireland had its wettest August since 1914.

The best potential will be in the southwest quadrant, especially the Cornish peninsula and the Scilly Isles. Here the cloud should clear to the east before the event so they should see most if not all of the event, with some patchy cloud at times. Northern Scotland/Orkney may see the beginning, Shetland may see most of it also. There is a chance that western Wales, southern Ireland and other SW England counties (ie Devon/Somerset/Dorset) may see the end of the eclipse. Shame really, we've had 2 clear nights with fantastic moons and now its going to cloud over - i only hope this rain band stalls longer than predicted (although that might lead to flooding).

nice clear slot now, but waaay too bright:( Just had a brief light shower too!

Here in Kent, it's a typical blustery day, with messy grey and white clouds, but equally some nice sunny spells in between. Clouds moving pretty quick so shouldn't obscure the sun for too long

1 lour rumble and bright flash of lightning around 10.05pm, completely unexpected and out of the blue! No rain, nothing on the radar and nothing since

nice capture neil, hardly worth it here only 1 fork and the rest were spoons! :lol: (IC's). It was over near enough as soon as it began sadly. A big disappointment <_<

yes, as ever it went further east But some fantastic shots there Jurgen, I only hope we see scenes like that at some point over the next few days

Another fantastic set of photos! :lol: These definately bring back memories :lol:

I actually really like picture 5 neil. I went to that part of the north Kent coast on a Geography Field Trip for my GCSE's - we walked from Reculver to Bishopstone Glen (by the beach with the curved sea wall and groynes). We had to analyse rock types and erosion processes along that stretch of the coast. Still some really great pics and it brings back the memories!! B)

Wow amazing photos neil! I've been there myself, quite a nice place

thanks everyone for your kind comments

A lovely summer's day today with blue skies most of the time. Things turned interesting towards the end of the afternoon with some rather oddly shaped clouds developing to the west : 16:50: notice how the cloud rapidly develops in a 10min slot : 17:00: These clouds cleared during the remainder of the evening Another interesting feature of the day was a bird 'formation' that passes over my house every evening (in sunny and dry weather). They form a series of circles around my estate, and at certain intervals one bird will drop out of the sequence and then fly back in. They do this several times for about half an hour between 7.20-7.50pm. It is a sight!

cheers, no worries - lol

our local BBC forecaster said that in 1888 on this very day (11 July) we had snow that gave a dusting in the city of Canterbury, Kent

They are really nice Neil, where abouts where they taken?