Convective Outlook

[Anvil Crawler]

Warm and humid with increasing risk of heavy showers and isolated thunderstorm from early evening onwards. Risk also applies elsewhere across the west Midlands. East Midlands region (particularly north-eastern parts) have an increased chance of heavy showers and thunderstorms from Saturday evening and on into Sunday- GFS and NAE have consistently shown heavy convective precip to break out over these regions as environment becomes increasingly unstable during this period.

Thanks weather09

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

By the sound of it, the likelyhood of the overnight plume getting here is a bit doubtful. Is that a fair judgement?

[Harry]

NMM High res posted by Paul looks great for my area tonight though models in general seem to try and push it further East...looking much better for a wider area of the UK tonight, with those 'fingers of moisture' Phil Avery spoke of last night appearing to set a much more promising scene for say the Midlands/NE England.

As has been frequently said though (re: MCS), storms can fire anywhere in a general area, then that mass can deviate in whichever direction they seem fit - drifting straight North, further East, NE....the trend though is for the plume of moisture to extend right up the East coast quite quickly overnight, so I'm inclined to think any MCS or homegrowns will move more N than E...ultimately, we wont know til they've fired.

LOL @ Pat...if only

[Stormyking]

I think today could be full of suprises just about anywhere.

Agreed, lets hope the weather does one of its magical moments and throw the unexpected places as well a big suprise

[Wilxy]

There is a intresting line of showers near cornwall wonder if they will pick up intensity as they hit land

[Neilsouth]

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/pws/invent/weathermap/

Run the Radar loop , this a met office view of precipitation rates for tonight-tomorrow !

wow for some

[Lewis]

There is a cell developing just South of Sprunehorpe/Brigg pushing NNE, there is also come convection kicking off near York.

Edited June 5, 2010 by North Sea Breeze

[chapmanslade]

My prediction for today is for increasingly pointless posts peaking in excitement around 20.00 this evening before a second wave of doomladen posts around 23.00. In the meantime the real weather will do as it wishes.

Post above about MCS formation is actually quite important as once a strong MCS has developed it will influence the developments itself which is very difficult to model.

[Harry]

My prediction for today is for increasingly pointless posts peaking in excitement around 20.00 this evening before a second wave of doomladen posts around 23.00. In the meantime the real weather will do as it wishes.

Post above about MCS formation is actually quite important as once a strong MCS has developed it will influence the developments itself which is very difficult to model.

I love an optimist :wub: LOL

[NL]

Darkening skies here in the NE, not looking like anythinhg thundery on radar but on satellite nice little Cu field has formed just off the Pennines and the Cheviots,orographic lift playing its part up here.

Not my usual quality(camera still in Aussie) as this was taken with my phone.

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

Darkening skies here in the NE, not looking like anythinhg thundery on radar but on satellite nice little Cu field has formed just off the Pennines and the Cheviots,orographic lift playing its part up here.

Not my usual quality(camera still in Aussie) as this was taken with my phone.

Oooh that looks threatening! Milky skies here.

[Lewis]

Wont be long here i don't think.

Cloud bubbling up with some towers forming. With an approaching small cell.

temp of 25ºc and dew point of 17ºc very muggy - ideal for thunderstorms

Edited June 5, 2010 by North Sea Breeze

[Stormyking]

Here we have milky skies along with the sun aswell and is feeling very humid and muggy to go with this we have some AcCas clouds which is a good sign I think

[Harry]

AcCas is always a good sign in this setup

Ac bubbling up here now too!! Signs of a few towers trying to organise London way, along with a few Cu's to my South...

Signs beginning to appear...which is always nice :wub:

[Stormyking]

Indeed Harry, some nice signs really sowing at the moment.

Getting to that time of day now where things start to look more interesting as we go threw the Afternoon.

[Ian Fergusson]

http://www.metoffice...ent/weathermap/

Run the Radar loop , this a met office view of precipitation rates for tonight-tomorrow !

wow for some

"For some" being the key phrase.

As the Chief F/C at UKMO Ops Centre has been at pains to stress in our briefings today, confidence in the evolution later today / overnight still remains low and our expectations are, of course, based increasingly now on the signal from the high resolution (UKV) products.

This destabilisation process today is a really complex cocktail and the overall level of regional - let alone local - forecast detail remains low. Worth emphasising this at the outset!

The primary area of upper forcing will edge into the SW during this evening (note the conspicuous plume on Vis / IR imagery out of Brest northwards with some PPN at the edge of radar range); the forcing then transfers northeastwards, to sit across Lincolnshire and environs by around 08z on Sunday. As you'll note from the raw (unmodified) product available on some websites, NAE is keen to develop thundery PPN associated with this, across a fairly wide area, which then - with time - effectively morphs into a back-bent occlusion.

Meanwhile, the heavy rain associated with the plume edging northwards over the Channel to parts of SE England will become a cold front. Albeit closer to the SE quarter in the early phase of this complex evolution, we expect it to then move back across into the continent. Worth also stressing that UKMO cautions a 50 to 100NM error bar (east-west) on the location of this plume engagement (it's been very variable run-to-run and inter-model, as many of you will doubtless have noted). There's some impressive-looking modelled ascents in this plume for the SE.... assuming it finally shows-up (roughly) where expected!

As for the rest of today, we'll see diurnally-driven showers developing in some well-signalled convergence zones, most notably from parts of eastern England up to Scotland (some very untable ascents for E Scotland). NAE is keen to throw-up 20 to 30mm peak values around Lincs and the Humber; with 25mm in a convergence zone expected to form over SW Scotland during Sunday morning.

Cheers,

Ian

Wont be long here i don't think.

Cloud bubbling up with some towers forming. With an approaching small cell.

temp of 25ºc and dew point of 17ºc very muggy - ideal for thunderstorms

See my last post.... you are in one of the best spots today / this evening, for sure.

[Costa Del Fal]

Hi Ian, what a change since you last posted when the GFS wanted all that rain nearer Wales!

It is very hard to predict these set ups as anything could happen. Pleasing to see showers (perhaps heavy) may form here tonight as yesterday it looked like tonight would be a dry evening. Whether anything goes bang is another matter but there probably will be a "scattering of surprises and a flurry of disappointments tonight". :wub:

Edited June 5, 2010 by Blizzards

[Lewis]

Hi,

I'm going chasing tonight, is Netweather Extra (the radar and various other stuff) pretty comptable with Iphone 3GS?

Regards

[Ian Fergusson]

PS: For lightning aficonados, the ATDNet system has just picked-up the first SFERIC for the day - in the growing cell that's now turned thundery just offshore from Osgodby, near Scarborough.

[Geordiesnow]

Thus far, NE Scotland seems the place to be if you want to catch any thundery showers at the moment, an severe weather warning being issued here for Scattered thundery showers to last throughout this afternoon.

Elsewhere, not alot happening at the moment in all honesty. Be interesting how any showers will merge into a longer spell of rain, the latest BBC forecast seem to want to reduce the thunder risk except for the SE corner so its a case of wait and see what occurs.

[Noctilucid]

Some fairly solid high based convection getting going to my South already, a combination of high based cumulus and castellanus. Although something is holding it back at present, but I'm sure as conditions change with dropping pressure and rising temps and dew points then some potential will be realised.

What is worrying is the considerable Easterly element these clouds have to their movemnt at present, but this too is likely to change later before a Westerly change moves in tomorrow morning.

The clouds at present appear to be capped and are pushing out a layer of outflow at mid level, hopefully this won't cut off insolation later on. Although saying that the instability is not near the boundary layer from what I've read and so heating of the ground is less important.

Edited June 5, 2010 by jshaw

[Ian Fergusson]

Hi Ian, what a change since you last posted when the GFS wanted all that rain nearer Wales!

It is very hard to predict these set ups as anything could happen. Pleasing to see showers (perhaps heavy) may form here tonight as yesterday it looked like tonight would be a dry evening. Whether anything goes bang is another matter but there probably will be a "scattering of surprises and a flurry of disappointments tonight".

Well, GFS had always wanted a more westerly solution for the plume engagement. There's a prospect for showers from the unstable mid--level (ACCas) cloud that'll spread into the SW later, but actually we're expecting a fair bit of the PPN in the West/SW to be dynamic in nature, rather than convective. Having said all that, the NAE signal for PPN is notably low across most SW/western England districts today and tonight; the main action will be in the east/SE, as earlier noted. Tomorrow has a far wider showery signal generally; however higher chance of CB/TS activity in these parts is early next week(Tues/Wed).

[Costa Del Fal]

Well, GFS had always wanted a more westerly solution for the plume engagement. There's a prospect for showers from the unstable mid--level (ACCas) cloud that'll spread into the SW later, but actually we're expecting a fair bit of the PPN in the West/SW to be dynamic in nature, rather than convective. Having said all that, the NAE signal for PPN is notably low across most SW/western England districts today and tonight; the main action will be in the east/SE, as earlier noted. Tomorrow has a far wider showery signal generally; however higher chance of CB/TS activity in these parts is early next week(Tues/Wed).

I agree, the proper showery, convective stuff shall hopefully arrive next week. I think this evening will just be a case of wait and see.

[Gorky]

That storm has just passed a few miles or so south of me at the moment. Skies are really dark in that direction. Not heard any thunder yet, but imagine it's dropped a fair bit of rain on it's way through. The joys of been stuck at home with no transport to go chase.... (you'd think I'd be chased out after 3 weeks in the states heh)

[Harry]

Some fairly solid high based convection getting going to my South already, a combination of high based cumulus and castellanus. Although something is holding it back at present, but I'm sure as conditions change with dropping pressure and rising temps and dew points then some potential will be realised.

What is worrying is the considerable Easterly element these clouds have to their movemnt at present, but this too is likely to change later before a Westerly change moves in tomorrow morning.

Couldn't have put it better myself Mr Shaw!

Some really nice looking Ac/Cu clouds bubbling up at the moment - the presence of cloud does seem to be holding back the temps a bit - but still noticeably muggy (not AS muggy as I'd normally expect in a plume scenario to be honest - the real moisture expected to feed in bit later from what I gather)