Wintry Showers in Kent this afternoon

[Nick F]

Headed off to East Kent this morning in hope of photographing some of the wintry showers expected - headed to Herne Bay first of all. Waited for an hour or so and got some shallow convective showers off the North Sea - gave some hail, sleet and few flakes of wet snow. After that band of showers moved through, nothing looked like happening upwind - with just some broken stratocumulus. So decided to go shopping in Canterbury for a few hours. Got back to the car, and an ominous looking bank of glaciated cloud lurked to the north - so headed to the North Downs between Ashford and Canterbury, and at a beauty spot with a good high point view - watched a heavy shower with nice cloud structure roll in - it produced what looked like a shelf cloud ahead of the main preciptn core - the precip consisted mainly of heavy 'polystyrene' hail and some sleet/wet snow - I stood out in it to get some of the pics - very unpleasant in the strong cold wind and stang my face.

Distant Cb looking east from Reculver towards Margate this morning:

Arrival of heavy wintry showers atop North Downs:

View south obscured by heavy ppn:

Heavy ppn core just cleared south towards the M20/English Channel:

[Azores Hi]

Nick, I was there eating my lunch before you got there! Fantastic shots by the way. They really capture the mood of the late afternoon.

[Nick F]

Ah yes, forgot you worked at Wye at the bottom of that hill, I was standing in that field above 'Devils Kneeding Trough' opposite the car park getting pelted and stung by soft hail for the sake of photography!

[Paul Sherman]

Brilliant Nick

The last picture looks straight out of the Midwest, good views, Just my luck to have Monday and Wednesday off this week

So how was the New Camera, has it been broken in yet ??

PaulS

[Azores Hi]

Well done for being so brave I was driving home looking at very similar scenes. particularly the last shot. In fact in it wasn't for some old man parked in the way of a convenient layby I would have got a great shot of the hail falling against the orange of the sunset. It would only have been on the mobile so not great loss.

So I'm glad you captured it for me!

[MP-R]

Awesome pics there! The 2nd one looks very threatening indeed!

[Nick F]

So how was the New Camera, has it been broken in yet ??

PaulS

Still alot of the settings I need to get used to, i.e exposue settings - tried a slow shutter speed to catch the snow and soft hail falling against the dark sky - but unfortunately I over-exposed it! Also the best shots were always into strong sunlight so wasn't sure how to adjust for that. Not to mention that I got the camera a little too wet on the lens too!

Steep learning curve.

[Somerset Squall]

Some really great photos there Nick. I love the photos with the rain curtain with the sun behind it, almost looks like a fair sky until you see the obvious rain shadow. And you've managed to capture the hail against the black sky very well too. Definitely worth getting soaked and stung!

[Stuart]

Brilliant pics nick Nick

[Andy Bown]

Are those hailstones falling in the 3rd pic Nick? It's brilliant .

Looks like a meteor shower !

[Nick F]

Yes, soft hail, like wet cold polystyrene balls! Tried to get it filmed falling against the dark sky as you would see with your own eyes - using a slow shutter speed, but overexposed the shots unfortunately.

[Andy Bown]

Yes, soft hail, like wet cold polystyrene balls! Tried to get it filmed falling against the dark sky as you would see with your own eyes - using a slow shutter speed, but overexposed the shots unfortunately.

Cool, thanks for the explanation, Soft Hail is probably more fun to watch falling than snow.