Amazing Start To Storm Season!

[ZONE 51]

What a start! 3 periods of thunderstorm activity in a month, i think back to the long time without our usual setups for spring showers and storms, and spanish plumes, imports, and now we enter the storm season and they all come at once, quite impressive compared to recent events with no shows over the last 2yrs, is this the new pattern, are we to see a thundery summer, i believe in patterns through the years and they come and go through phases, so i think we are set now for many stormy periods this spring and summer.

[Stuart]

yes a Great start of the storm season and i sure there be lot more to come better then last year :lol:

[Jane Louise]

Yes, I can't believe our luck so far . I think it's going to be a very good year to. Let's hope for a good Summer. Plenty of exciting weather to look forward to. Bring on the storms!

[Buckster76]

pants so far in S-East?

here in my part of Essex - no TSs atall so far this year:(

[Tim B]

We are long overdue for a hot, thundery year so this could be the one.

I hope so anyway.

[Phil UK]

I'm still here.

Even if the so near, yet so deceiving clouds on 7th May 2011... Pfft! (See attachment!)

Maybe today? Who knows? Good luck all.

Phil.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Here's the Met Office map of lightning strikes for April 2011:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2011/4/2011_4_LightningStrikes_Actual.gif

I wouldn't really call the start to the storm season "amazing" averaged nationally- January, February and March all had below average thunder activity and in Norwich I didn't see a single cumulonimbus during February or March. But it does seem that April has made up for it, with only April 2008 producing significantly more lightning activity in the last 10 years- seemingly the spring equivalent of a July 1983 or 2006 with lots of hot sunshine but also notable thundery outbreaks.

May could well end up as a pretty active month if the theme for sunshine and showers continues.

[Andy Bown]

Here's the Met Office map of lightning strikes for April 2011:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2011/4/2011_4_LightningStrikes_Actual.gif

That monthly map is always interesting. I'd expect that many of the strikes recorded in the swathe running SSE-NNW between

West Dorset and North Cornwall occured on the very last day of the month!

[virtualsphere]

May should have a pretty impressive lightning strike map as well. Looking at this, which shows strikes from just the last week, and you can only see the far north of Scotland and SE England:

http://andvari.vedur.is/athuganir/eldingar/index.html?

As the Met Office map is a little more detailed it will be interesting to see where exactly the strikes have been at the end of the month - still time to cover the map yet!

Despite the disappointment for some on Saturday, the last week has certainly been good for many in Western and central parts.

[Marcus_surfer]

Has been a very thundery day here with thunder heard from 11am till 7.30PM. Also have had a few storms before today, so not bad at all.

[Slowpoke]

Here's the Met Office map of lightning strikes for April 2011:

http://www.metoffice...ikes_Actual.gif

How do you get those maps I can't find them on the site?

EDIT: Found it!

Edited May 9, 2011 by Slowpoke

[Liam J]

Friday night delivered the most impressive electric storm I have witnessed, with CG lightning which at one point was 10 seconds apart or even less and CC lightning in between.

I admit at one point I was actually a tad worried! A mile away there were reports of damage to a car and a few tv's/satellite dishes blown up.

[ZONE 51]

i think May is likely to have a well covered lightning map, its certainly done a good layer since may began for some areas!

[ZONE 51]

can anyone get a link to local lightning activity, the MetO does UK on a whole but not local/regions as far as i know. thanks

[ZONE 51]

below is a lightning frequency map covering december 2010 to april 2011.(14months)

-

low file size image below -

these are using 14 lightning maps from the Met Office and blending them, i have highlighted only the highest frequency areas in bright yellow/pale yellow-green, the blue areas did have lightning strikes but i have decided to fade them out of the map to enhance the high frequency areas, the clustered bright yellow areas are the highest amount of storm activity,

the channel has a huge amount and is a differerent colour due to high lightning the land further.

Edited May 16, 2011 by ElectricSnowStorm

[Coast]

the channel has a huge amount and is a differerent colour due to high lightning the land further.

It just doesn't get onto land on many occasions though!!!! :lol:

[ZONE 51]

It just doesn't get onto land on many occasions though!!!! :lol:

i was expecting to be highlighting only the channel!:lol:

[The PIT]

One week Thunderstorm here nothing to get excited about. Sheffield shield in good working order.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Looking at the general lack of thunder activity projected for the rest of May, I think the period January-May 2011 is going to go down as a close to average storm season, with above average activity in April, near average in May (due to the active second week cancelling out the generally inactive remainder of the month) and below average in January-March.

Compared with recent years 2011 is probably slightly up on 2009 so far, and significantly up on 2007 and 2010, but below 2008. Further back, the springs of 1998, 1999 and 2000, and maybe 2005 as well, also had rather more thunder activity overall.

[ZONE 51]

i do think after the summer we will be looking back at a pretty good season of thunderstorms, we of course don't know if after the drought we get all the storms at once to break any records, but im sure we are to do quite good this year as for some its been a nice start, at least its not a quite one like 2010!

edit..saying that some are still waiting for storms, so its quite to them!we still have not had proper imports , this is what im waiting for,multicells flashing away from different directions all night.

Edited May 22, 2011 by ElectricSnowStorm

[ZONE 51]

Here are two maps of lightning data - i have checked and they are correct this time as the last map i had put wrong dates on.

1-march-april-may 2010

2-march-april-may 2011

we can now compare the activity-and its very noticable!!

red colour = low frequency , pale yellow = moderate , and of course the bright yellow is high frequency/activity over two or three months.

Spring 2010

Spring 2011

Edited June 9, 2011 by ElectricSnowStorm

[Thundery wintry showers]

As in the other thread, I need to correct an earlier assessment of mine- thunder activity for January-May 2011 appears to have been a little above the 2001-2010 average judging by the Met Office lightning maps (though not necessarily longer-term averages). East Anglia is a glaring exception.

[Phil UK]

Try living in Solihull. This time last year we'd already had two. 1st May 2010 being the most notable with the marble sized hail and most frequent intracloud lightning which came out of literally nowhere.

8th June 2011... The 'Solihull Scraper'...

But missed us by a few miles but the base was awesome to watch.

Maybe next time, otherwise still nada in this part of the country.

Phil.

[ZONE 51]

East Anglia is a glaring exception.

When i look at last spring and this year i can see how little activity occured across EA and other regions, i think its best for me to say that some have had an amazing start to the storm season, wheres other have not, i suppose when i put the title up i should have said "have you had an amazing start to storm season?" i would imagine many would say no!:lol: i think what would be interesting is if we had some 80s maps of lightning data uploaded on here, has anyone got access to the data? Edited June 10, 2011 by ElectricSnowStorm