Storms and Convective discussion - May 2024

[Cakie]

Staying up in Newcastle for the night and got woken up by thunder at around 3.30am. 

[Summer tyre]

Hi @Supacell; I was based near Eastbourne for the entire duration of the storm, and like you I have around an hour and a half of video. I have also been disappointed with the appearance on camera and agree that there was a lot more activity than now appears on my screen. I think this is a technical issue to do with the camera sensors. You have to make a choice with a camera; it's either set to pick up the tiniest amount of light, when the image looks grainy and odd when edited such as the image here. This does actually show an illuminated cloud behind the trees which simply appeared as a dull flicker on the night to me watching but I had forgotten to turn a light off in the depths of the house and it's clearly shining into the garden - but completely invisible to me until I saw this image and turned it off. However, if there is a proper CG or even a cloud strike nearby then I would just have a completely white rectangle as the sensor would be overwhelmed. People want to capture those wonderful images of CG and so set cameras completely differently to to let much less light in. Once you do that, it becomes insensitive to these faint strokes that the eye still registers and so you get a distorted idea of the totality of the event. I was using two cameras and a smartphone in my attempts to bridge this gap.

[Supacell]

 Summer tyre This is true. I have been out filming storms at night in the past with the camera set to pick up more light and when I've got home I've been disappointed. I would rather a darker image that captures the bolts than a brighter, grainy image that captures the flashes. Even though there weren't many bolts to capture from where I was. I actually think most of the bolts may have been just behind me, but there was no view that way.

Thank you for confirming. I knew I was seeing more flashes than my video shows. The constant thunder is also a testament to that.

[Jamie M]

 Flash bang flash bang etc
 

You're pretty much spot on, was looking SW-W towards Canterbury where the cell was. 

Managing to avoid nearly all the rain certainly helped a nice clear slot into the cells that went by to my north and south lol 

 

[Thunders]

 Supacell my camera didn't pick it up either very well, it was almost constant lighning from what I saw out my window.

[Wade]

Some pretty potent cells near Calais, providing they don't weaken, could be a nice surprise for anyone in the far corner of the SE i.e. Hythe eastwards 

Edited May 4 by Wade

[ChannelThunder]

 Wade surface based, those. Even though it's just a short crossing to Kent you can already see the channel instantly killing them off.

[Thunders]

Just thought you would like to know I’m now in bexhill 

[Cain]

Guessing the stuff from the south will just be rain an boring showers 

[Eagle Eye]

Convective Outlook️

Throughout the day across Scotland & SW England, intense showers are expected to form which may bring the a couple isolated lightning strikes.

 

Across Scotland, CAPE levels are expected to rise drastically going into the afternoon where intense showers will break out. CAPE will be at around 200-500J/KG, which may allow the odd or couple of thunderstorms to develop, mainly across the AOI (Area of interest)

 

Behind an occluded front across SW Eng, CAPE will also build up to around 100-300J/KG which brings the risk of the odd or few isolated lightning strikes. Heavy & intense showers will develop behind the front, whether these produce lightning or not is a different question. The risk for SW Eng, is very low & we are not to confident on it.

 

Our attention then flips towards the Eng Channel in the night, a low pressure will track into Bay of Biscay (NW France). This will bring some instability across the channel at around 100-300J/KG which may allow a few lightning strikes from the intense showers in the channel. These showers are expected to stay in the channel & not affecting S Coast till tomorrow morning which another outlook will be published.

[Josh Rubio]

The AROME model for tomorrow afternoon looks quite interesting. 

[Wade]

 Eagle Eye Looks like your forecast is bang on the money for east Scotland so far lad 

[Sprites]

 Josh Rubio 

If the cloud breaks up early then should be some thundery showers along the CZ. 

[Wade]

Not very electrical those cells in Scotland however could produce a high amount of rain as they appear intense and slow moving, could have a flash flood as Scotland has lots of hills and mountains than the rest of Britain does

[Metwatch]

Not particularly convective but I thought today's evolution was quite neat to observe. Started off warm and sunny before shallow convection building, then the weakening front slowly made its way here and soon enough reached overhead by mid afternoon. Today has sort of looked like a Spanish plume day in a way, thought that was interesting.

[Summer tyre]

I'm doing some homework on CAPE. Does Netweather carry any Skew-T charts?

[viking_smb]

 Summer tyre yes

[Southern Storm]

Hi All, I finally got round to editing the footage I captured while out chasing Thursdays storms. 

My first time photographing storms at Portsdown and I can't see it being my last, shooting from a higher vantage point is a game changer. If anyone can recommend similar locations with decent parking and high unobstructed views it would be much appreciated! ideally anywhere west of London and south of the M4.

Can't wait for the next round of storms

 

Edited May 5 by Southern Storm

[Summer tyre]

Ah, thank you - found them now.

[ThomasD27]

This morning started off with some surprisingly strong convection for me. Had a  nice pileus cloud on top of a towering cumulus at 11:10am, followed by some more stratiform clouds moving in. Feeling hopeful for tomorrow!

Edited May 5 by ThomasD27

[Cain]

Showers are trying just nothing happening 

[Jamie M]

 Southern Storm Incredible, love the audio especially around 04:35 

[A Face like Thunder]

 Josh Rubio yes, Chris F on BBC1 Countryfile was talking of heavy and thundery showers breaking out widely tomorrow afternoon and evening.

[LIGHTNING ACTION]

tomorrow looking great if anything, ima get my tripod and my recorder set up by noon and i'll either take a timelapse or if theres any rumbles i'll record

[Flash bang flash bang etc]

I really recommend ppl who are interested in tomo’s potential check out the discussion in the UKWW chat.

Nigel and Tony have been conversing and some really interesting revelations about how these thing work.

In summary tomorrow won’t be a classic event, but certainly some potential for those in the right place at the right time.

Area of interest appears to be Salisbury - but there’s a good risk map which covers a large swathe of the south coast

Link:

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