Reefseeker

Maybe that cell around Haslemere or the stuff approaching from the Isle of Wight? Hope it makes it here, still feels quite warm. Edit: just looked south west out the attic window and saw 2 forks of lightning in the distance.

Had a very light shower earlier and the radar shows precipitation moving north-west of here. Sun back out now with milky skies. As the autumnal feel slowly kicks in, the days are noticeable for how hot it gets when the sun is out but how cool it feels when it's cloudy. A lot of evenings bring beautiful cloudscapes that look as if they could deliver torrential rain but then just thin out and disappear. Loving the cooler nights although early darkness is not my thing.

And we've just had a torrential downpour. Got there in the end!

It has quite literally just been going around us for the past 40 minutes. But there have been 2 rumbles of thunder in the distance.

Well, the clouds are definitely giving it a try here in Surbiton. The sunny spells deliver a lot of heat, breezy when it clouds over. Fingers crossed we all get at least some rain, a good thunderstorm would be fab:) Edit: the radar has sprung into life in the past 20 minutes. Just missing us so far on the sudden line of showers to the north-east.

Great pictures Mark. Indeed, the radar shows lovely looking cells to the north and west of us. Must admit, I stood out in yesterday evening's rain and have enjoyed today's cool down.

Dry here in Surbiton since lunchtime but a good dousing of rain this morning. Took this pic on our evening walk. I would guess it's the cell over approximately the Heathrow area on the radar.

We were watching the clouds this afternoon to the north east from the duckponds park feeling rather envious. Nice to get a few blobs even if, as you say, it doesn't look too dramatic for now. Beggars can't be choosers and whatnot. Edit: Still going quite strongly

Raindrops from this little cell that is part of that blob on the radar around Guildford-ish formed in the last hour or so. Petrichor is fragrant:)

In Bournemouth for a few days. Very toastie yesterday. The tiniest bit of breeze today with a few cloud towers in the haze above us. The Sandbanks chain ferry was taking traffic only from the Studland side yesterday on account of the fire that spread smoke widely. So sad in such a beautiful area.

That was a hot and sticky walk around central London. The type where you're seeking out any kind of shade, filling up with water every 10 minutes and wondering why anyone would choose to eat and drink outside next to a busy road rather than indoors under air conditioning. Super clear blue skies back home in Surbiton where we have every possible window and glass door covered. The local pond has dried out even more with rats scurrying around over cracked mud where ducks used to paddle.

Our local duck pond drying out now. As @Blessed Weather showed in the stats thread, it's truly dire from a rain pov with little sign of change anytime soon.

Surbiton seemed to grow a nice big cell overhead but send it off to other places south east of here, giving us no more than 10 minutes of rain. Something I've never witnessed was seeing all the falling raindrops lit by the sun against a dark cloud - it was like looking up in winter and seeing the snowflakes falling.

Definitely hair dryer conditions out and about this morning. Some people were clearly struggling in the heat. At Kingston Hospital, one nurse was very unhappy that elderly outpatients are being cooled with fans which spread infection. Left 40c on the car thermometer in Surbiton. Arriving in Ringwood it's 25c with orangey-grey skies, damp roads and big convective drops falling. The queue out of Bournemouth is incredibly long, I imagine many left the beaches as the cold front came through.

Having dropped to a temperature of 34.1c under milky skies, the cloud has cleared and it's now back up to 35.8c. I've a feeling some very hot maxes are likely tomorrow. But a convective storm would be nice if the heavens could just rustle something up:)

Yes, we had a drop earlier on our local Wunderground station from 36c to 35.5c which I put down to the cloud cover; it went back up to 36c around half an hour ago, now down to 35.1, so no more increase in heat in this area by the looks of it. It would be nice if we could get a few convective downpours like we did last night. Edit: just dropped by a further degree under mostly milky skies, the slight breeze is still in evidence too.

Well done @MAF for executing CPR in an emergency and in this heat. Local Wunderground stations are reflecting the ebb and flow of the high cloud, dropping to 35.5 then back up to 36 around Surbiton. Went out for our lunchtime walk and it was definitely hot; we do a lot of walking in these sorts of temperatures in Cyprus, but have the sea and/or air conditioning nearby for a cooldown. Felt sorry for the guys laying a driveway plus some more working on scaffolding, hope they were managing to keep their body temperature under control or they too could end up in need of medical care.

And 50 minutes later... showing 34c!

Just checked in on our two closest weather stations on Wunderground. They are both showing 33c at 11.30am. I'm giving that a 'wow'. Very slight haze aloft but still very strong sunshine driving those temperatures up. As with others, all the doors and windows are closed here, blinds and curtains shut, fan on for WFH and a toasty 26c indoors, which will no doubt be climbing fast despite our best efforts. I hope people stay safe (and employers think safe?). Take care of pets too, those pavements are too hot for little paws.

Yep, just had a really heavy shower here lasting for around 2 minutes! The smell of petrichor is incredible. Edit: another shower coming through, less intense.

24 hours later, the Wunderground stations locally are hotter than yesterday, with one solitary 29 degrees and the rest at 30-31. So not too cool from the thin high cloud that arrived at lunchtime which has given us hazy sunshine for the afternoon. The park had plentiful sunbathers alongside people playing cricket, basketball, tennis and football; the slight breeze no doubt very welcome. The edges of the ponds are now starting to crack where they have dried out and the stream that supplies one of them is non-existent.

Feeling very hot in Surbiton this afternoon, with mostly clear blue skies. Local weather stations on Wunderground within a 3-mile radius are showing temperatures between 27-31. The stalwart cricketers still played their game at the local park but other than two groups of picnic-ers, the park was quite empty. The ground is absolutely rock hard and the duck pond is drying up on its edges, leaving the wee ducks less and less water to gather in under the shade of the trees.

Blackberries in our local park are ranging in colour from green to red to black. Meanwhile the football pitch ranges from green to beige to white. A lovely breeze is helping to keep things a little more bearable in Surbiton with a mix of blue sky and clouds. Absolutely dreading next week. Like some others, as a family we are regularly in high temperatures, in our case in Cyprus, but we don't love it, spend a lot of time in the water and have air conditioning. Temperatures in the mid to high 30s in the London suburbs in a Victorian house are a very different matter. I share others' concerns regarding widespread health impacts.

Indeed, I was so keen to work it out I followed last night's flight on FlightRadar and I think it's Alps region, around Switzerland or Austria, so you're pretty much spot on there:) More cloud today than yesterday but the sun managing to push through regularly keeping the temperature up.

Flew from Paphos to Gatwick late last night and encountered some dramatic lightning accompanied by very bumpy turbulence somewhere that I would guess may have been northern Italy-Germany-France area. We were above the clouds and the flashes were going off continuously to the left of the plane, with some amazing litmus paper-style prolonged light shows, at times appearing to cover the whole horizon while advancing towards the aircraft. This lasted around 30-45 minutes and certainly made the flight more interesting! Back in Surbiton and it's cloud and blue skies with sunshine sort of weather, quite warm with it. A relief from the persistent mid-30s of Cyprus for the past 2 weeks.