General Storm Thread

[TheToastPeople]

looking at the radar that rain that just went over you might be over me in a few hours!

[SteveB]

A bit of patchy rain heading my way, seem to be weakening with every radar loop though. I guess it must be the Bristol channel sucking the life out of them.

Should strengthen again once they hit land.

[Arnie Pie]

Good convection starting in the West Midlands

Edited August 18, 2010 by windypants

[TonyH]

Current structure of cell N of Brum, heading E

with more visible following on from the W

That's a great view you have over the city!

Looks like they were just little showers passing to the north not much heading for the central Midlnds as yet.

[multi cellular thunderstorm]

First sferics appearing on the Netweather lightning detector, one just east of Manchester, the other in SW Scotland.

No showers around here yet but some half decent convection.

Our new radar site is down, so any ppn on the radar up here will probably show lighter than it actually is, that's what normally happens when it's down.

Good luck everyone, looks like the action is starting.

[Stuart]

Had a few showers but not anything thundery i dont think i see any

[sunny scunny]

Decent convection here, but the showers are struggling to make it accross the pennines so far.

[Delta76]

Decent convection here, but the showers are struggling to make it accross the pennines so far.

just had a shower here scunny ....quite sharp but not as sharpe as billy .lol

[Sprites]

shallow convection looks about it for east anglia ATM... ,currently under an inversion with fake mamma type strato-cumuls the convection here has gone crazy!! in the last 5mins ,huge towers must be pushing 42,000 ft

[NL]

First sferics appearing on the Netweather lightning detector, one just east of Manchester, the other in SW Scotland.

No showers around here yet but some half decent convection.

Our new radar site is down, so any ppn on the radar up here will probably show lighter than it actually is, that's what normally happens when it's down.

Good luck everyone, looks like the action is starting.

Cheers for that info Mark. Thought it was not working correctly its been up and down for a few days if not a week or so, any ideas what problems they're having? hope when they solve the problems they dont end up with another anaprop covering the area.....

[sunny scunny]

quite sharp but not as sharpe as billy .lol

Rather dark here with a heavy shower passing through,although the worst of it is to my south.

WOW it's absolutely hammering down now

Edited August 18, 2010 by sufc

[jamesbhx]

Quite an active little cell here at the moment. Thunder every 30 seconds or so for about the last 10 minutes. Not much in the way of precipitation despite what the radar echo shows. Seems to be heading due east.

[ANYWEATHER]

Quite an active little cell here at the moment. Thunder every 30 seconds or so for about the last 10 minutes. Not much in the way of precipitation despite what the radar echo shows. Seems to be heading due east.

Yes, Ive heared, thunder going on for at least 10 minutes rumbling almost constantly the most thunder Ive heared for years in one go here at Hampton, Evesham. Rain torrential for about 20 seconds and that was that!! :lol:

[saint]

Heavy rain here, no thunder though.

[A.J]

A really poor performance by the storm gods for the west midlands today......a bit like Man City FC actually, great potential, but the mixture doesn't gel, and result is pants.......In fact I've been surprised by the general lack of shower/storm activity country

[Gordon]

A really poor performance by the storm gods for the west midlands today......a bit like Man City FC actually, great potential, but the mixture doesn't gel, and result is pants.......In fact I've been surprised by the general lack of shower/storm activity country

I know what you mean

Considering the forecast for showers / storms that were forecast for the country as a whole and the midlands / northern England in particular , we have all got off quite lightly

[SteveElbows]

Ive been getting reasonable results in recent months by basing my expectations on the GFS maps 'UK storm risk', combined with the storm risks shown by other sites and the insightful comments posted on these forums.Combined with some chance lucky timing for when I choose to be optimistic and when I decide not to expect much, Ive not had too many days where Ive felt let down. Seeing many days with lots of potential on the GFS models and then have to potential vanish in later runs can be quite a let down, but its nice when potential vanishes and then returns.

This week for example I should probably have been more optimistic than I turned out being, which is just as well as today and yesterday I have just been missing out on some decent rainfall, keep clipping the very edge of cells or missing entirely. Today I have seen many interesting clouds but only had a few seconds of large but infrequent raindrops. Right now I can see a rainbow, over some menacing clouds heading to my East.

I will be sad if this season ends without one thunderstorm at night and I dont think Ive had any hail yet either, but Im keeping a mix of anticipation for somthing special and a gloomy sense that it wont happen at all in my mind. One day it will happen, even if its not this year, and then it will seem even more special for all the waiting.

Edited August 18, 2010 by SteveElbows

[TonyH]

I know what you mean

Considering the forecast for showers / storms that were forecast for the country as a whole and the midlands / northern England in particular , we have all got off quite lightly

Seems like over expectation really, only scattered showers were ever likely today, and even parts of Warwickshire have reported thunder both yesterday and today.

[A.J]

But there lies the problem - the potential was there, but wasn't great. These air masses are typical of heavy showers and isolated weak thunderstorms, but sometimes just don't bring much in the way of anything noteworthy. Obs showed that moisture was (is) today low across the country - some places having dew points still in single figures - and that's not conducive at all to thunderstorm development. Cold pool aloft and surface heating has contributed to quite a few heavy showers today, though - some accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Then again, yesterday's storm potential was really lacking going by model output, but still managed to bring slow-moving heavy downpours and some weak storms.

are you saying that Man City FC don't have great potential?...lol.......anyhoos, stop nit-picking my post...lol

[Backtrack]

Had a very heavy but sharp shower here today around 3:50pm. Nothing remotley stormy about the weather today despite the great potential. It's been lovely and sunny from 3pm.

[Andy Bown]

Interesting local conditions today : 2.5mm of rain here yet a strip running W-E to the S of here had around half an inch of rain

from frequent showers. There's an almost dry wedge through most of Central?n Wilts/N Somerste/Bath/Bristol and then half an inch

ish occured again North of the M4!

[Kris T]

After a decent spell of convection today, yet again I got nowt!

[Hurricane Buckley]

Hey all, kinda new to here or though of course have the radar! i somehow was sat in between showers today they went North and South of me...Taunton in a valley annoying!!

[Joey.G]

Yes, Ive heared, thunder going on for at least 10 minutes rumbling almost constantly the most thunder Ive heared for years in one go here at Hampton, Evesham. Rain torrential for about 20 seconds and that was that!! :lol:

Chased that cell for a while, wasnt planning it so I was playing catchup and I got stuck in rush hour traffic Had a great view of it while driving north from chelt on the M5 prob about 16.15 - It had this awesome tail of scud feeding up the side of a hill into the cloud base which was a good few hundred metres higher than the hill. It lost this as it cleared the hill and developed what looked like a hail shaft on the SW edge, I think the radar shows it at 17.15. I havnt seen any reports of hail though so could have been the sun shining on a rain shaft I guess.

Didnt see any lightning, prob too far away from the action and no piccies either! If using a phone while driving is illegal then taking photos is probably not the best idea...

Edit: UKWW topic on same cell, so it was hail the loweings pictured here are not what I was describing above though, that was viewed from the M5 as the storm came up the side of the hill West of Evesham... Would have loved to have been in Upton Snodsbury! (real place, thank you V5 beta)

Edited August 18, 2010 by Joey.G

[Coast]

Nothing brewing today it seems but the next few days are bubbling along before it goes ultra quiet!

Don't get too excited, it takes an awful lot of the right ingredients to get a storm it seems this year