Lt. Dan

Visible to my North West now, shame there is some low cloud in the way but these are pretty bright tonight.

Nice work mate. I couldn't really get any reflections I was happy with. That was the quietest I've ever know that East-West road along the reservoir, well that is apart from the geese who did their best to scare the **** out of me every 30 seconds.

My second shot of the night, this time from across Hanningfield Reservoir, somewhere between 2 and 3am. Didn't look as bright to me as the earlier showing but seemed much wider across the horizon - I was running on fumes by then though. Yes big thanks to @Arnie Pie for keeping us all updated.

I pretty much crapped out every time I tried to capture these last year but tonight I finally managed it. This was looking NNE about 11PM. Shame about the foreground but that will do for now (scaled down image)

Theta-e (850hPa) output from a six member 4km wrf ensemble sref.io : short range ensemble forecast SREF.IO A short range WRF physics ensemble with six concurrent members producing output for the UK & Ireland I'm not plotting convergence and divergence currently but could always add that to the list

Paul S Bumped into your mate Pete Scott at Stansted last night, he showed me a nice spot (thanks again, Pete) for shooting CG's against the ATC tower - nothing hit to our disappointment Still, nice to blow the dust off the camera and see some UK lightning. Not the best pic (but best of the night), I'm a bit rusty this year...

Hi Paul Is your 4km running a CU scheme, and is it nested or a straight 4km grid?

Some of the forecast soundings do show some impressive SRH values with some rather large looping hodographs. I'm assuming this is due to the low level south-easterly flow (possibly 35kts at 925mb on some output) with veering winds above. Its almost a shame, as the boundary layer looks quite stable and with these storms rooted above, but a surface based storm in that environment could be very interesting.

They could well be two different model grids placed over different geographic regions, rather than one big 2KM grid. Probably a good example of how these models are quite sensitive to the initial conditions they are initialised with and their model configuration, physics, domain sizes etc.

Modellzentrale's 4KM looks better for the south east, though if you follow that model closely it can get a little excitable with convection at times. Doesn't mean its necessarily wrong this time, but I guess we will find out later! The ManUniCast model would be worth checking when it rolls out.

Couple of charts from an 18z 3km GFS init run. The model appears to destabilise the edge of the plume again, its been fairly consistent with this approach recently but its no more accurate than any other deterministic model run. It does put a bullseye over central southern areas at midnight - make of that how you will Note the big 'bite' missing from the northern edge of the elevated instability, this is likely to be where the storm is eating into the instability and it appears to ride along this moving north east out towards the Wash area. The supercell composite parameter is almost off the scale, though that could well be skewed as its a composite of a few different parameters and its also a fixed layer (not effective layer). Interesting to see that there is still disagreement between some of the higher res GFS models...Something, somewhere would be my guess

Re: the Skipton storm. Max 2-5km updraught helicity product attached from a 3km 06z run this morning. You could argue that the convection was modelled too early but this does appear to suggest an environment that could support a rotating cell in Northern England this evening.

There are a few other free to access WRF's ManUniCast 4km http://manunicast.seaes.manchester.ac.uk/index.php ModellZentralle 12 & 4km (just about covers south east England) http://www.modellzentrale.de/ RipWRF 3km https://ripwrf.info (this is my own project which has been in development for about a year) All ARW cores initialised from GFS (as are the NMM's at Meteociel/Netweather etc)

There is some very interesting output, for tomorrow afternoon, modelled from the 06z 3km ripWRF. This has some notable surface gusts at times underneath the ongoing convection, the most striking is the 85mph surface gust modelled from the convection near to the Lake District. Would be interesting to see if that verifies - and fits nicely with the Estofex forecast.

Couple of charts from some of the other WRF-ARW convection allowing models... The 3km ripWRF output for the overnight hours appears to destabilise the edge of the plume later this evening with elevated convection moving north-east from the Midlands. Decent signal on the max integrated column graupel product - suggestive of hail (n.b max possible value) The ManUniCast 4km WRF also looks quite similar with its simulated reflectivity, though both models are initiated from the GFS (different physics schemes however) - if thats wrong, well, these may well be too!

Not exactly, the WRF model has two core resolvers available, one of which is the NMM core, the other the ARW core. The NMM core is favoured by some as its generally a lot quicker to run when compared to the ARW core, useful if your forecasts are time sensitive etc. The ARW might be considered to be more accurate but it can be slower to run. The US HRRR model uses the WRF with the ARW core, I think Meteociel use the WRF with the NMM core, last time I used the Netweather high res suite, that was using the NMM core. They are all run independently of each other and can all be ran with different physics options/at different resolutions/nests-no nests (the ARW core actually has a lot more options in this regard) and might not all necessarily 'agree'. Getting a bit off topic now but I never know which particular model people are referring to when they mention the NMM/WRF etc...could be one of many! Bit more info from the WRF site http://www.wrf-model.org/index.php

My guess would be that's a model initialised from the GFS, the site is a bit sparse with regards model setup and configuration etc, though its free to access so can only assume its using GFS. Unless they have deep pockets to use the ECMWF data...who knows. If its GFS data, then that's not available for a WRF to initialise until approx. 4 hours after the GFS run (e.g 16z for the 12z GFS). The current charts on their site could well be run from the 12z GFS, it just takes that long for their model to run after the GFS data becomes available.

Out of interest, which WRF variant are you referring to? Most of the WRF's are run at the mesocale with their initial and boundary conditions coming from a global model, such as the GFS. If its a model initialised from the GFS then its not unusual for the WRF to have similar output - depending on model resolution, physics etc.

Just a glimpse of a rainbow from those showers south of Chelmsford...

Have you had a look at WeeWX? I think that will run on a Raspberry Pi and it does list a Fine Offset 3080 for supported hardware (if that's your model). I've used it for a while through a virtual machine and it's been very reliable. http://www.weewx.com/

Probably the cold front passing through. Surface obs show a wind shift to the North West. Note the temperature drop across the south west as well.

Tooooooom, Roooooooooob, Toooooooom, Maaaaaaaat, Daaaaaaan, Roooooooooob Yea, tour 2. (tour 2 where rob likes to stop for a random poo) Jimbob, are we just going for a single room this year

Not been a bad morning - who moved Essex overnight!

As Paul mentioned above, some impressive looking skies over Essex this morning. Quick snap...

Forecast soundings do show the elevated instability quite nicely. I would take a guess that a combination of the high 850 theta-e values and some weak height falls from the west (WRF-12K shows this heading east this evening) are generating a little (elevated) instability? I can't really make out much more forcing for anything other than that. It looks as though most of the country is under the convergent side of the jet as well. Satellite analysis shows, what must now be, elevated lapse rates. All a bit weak perhaps? Just a thought, but I'm unsure if any of that is actually accurate!