Violent Thunderstorm, Videos & Stills...penkridge 090511

[A.J]

Ok, here's a round up of both video footage and stills capture from last night's epic thunderstorm.

Quite remarkable in it's intensity, it drifted up from the SW as seen in the first video, with some quite amazing structure, beautifully defined shelf cloud & gust front...There was a 2 minute spell of 10p sized hailstones, as the gust front passed over, and then some vivid overhead lightning with a mixture of IC & CG strikes....What struck me was the amount of lightning, between 20 & 60 flashes a minute for a sustained period....A very well organised thunderstorm, with possible supercellular characteristics, although no confirmation as of yet...One thing that was definitley noticable though was an marked inflow as the shelf approached, with a brief strong easterly wind, as opposed to an outflow SWerly I would expect from a UK surface based storm....Anyhoos, it was an epic storm, the best that I've witnessed in the UK, so enjoy the stills & footage, and please excuse my narrative during the footage, lots of "Oh my gods"...lol...Jeez I sounded like a love struck teenager on it!.....on 087.avi after a cloud to ground strike wihich left me breathless, I could barely get any words out, just a bunch of useless stuttering and stammering....lol.....and please excuse the odd expletetive!!! :lol: ......Enjoy!

Stills

The first 3 captures show the approaching thunderstorm from the south west...For me this was probably the best part of the storm, with some stunning cloud structure.....The remaining captures are after the gust front has passed over leaving excellent viewing conditions, looking north east, of the IC & CG strikes

Video

3 parts of video footage, each clip is approx 5 minutes in length, again the first clip shows the approach of the storm, and parts 2 & 3 show's various lightning strikes as the storm passes overhead to the north east....Rather than embed the footage here, I've decided to post the direct youtube links, as I've found for some unknown reason, the embedded footage is very jerky...

[PolarWarsaw]

I watched it unexpectedly from my work place in Rugeley. Couldnt believe the intensity and frequency of the lighning, then the hail and rain.

[Raidan]

Great pics aj just wish something like that would come my way.

[Stuart]

Well done AJ Great Pics and Vids

[Lauren]

Woohoo! Look at that badboy!

How long did it last for?

[The watcher]

Closest I have seen in the UK to a proper american supercell. Right down to the greenish hue as the gust front approached.

[Andy Bown]

Thanks for your work in sorting the videos and stills AJ.

You had the best of both worlds : enough daylight to see the awesome structure and then it being dark enough to revel

in the lightning display!

If you can access the NW radar and save the slides with it zoomed to your postcode I'm sure Paul Sherman would be the man

to tell you if it was supercellular to any extent (shame he's in the USA for a month or so though!).

[SteveB]

What a storm, could on dream of something like that for here.

You must be happy with that..

[Phil UK]

Excellent footage, AJ. We'll forgive the expletives.

Oh how I wish... But this is the SSS... (Solihull Storm Shield!)

Phil.

[Coast]

Superb stuff AJ and well captured, I am very jealous!

[dave48]

Great photos and videos, in terms of lightning frequency in the UK, that is one of the most active looking storms I have ever seen!

Thanks for posting that up.

[Alex95]

I've experienced a supercell in France before, and that storm bore many of the same characteristics, although the winds don't seem that strong in the video whereas in France there were damaging gusts as the storm moved through. Its a long time since I've seen a storm like that in the UK, and that was the possible supercell which affected NE England on the 31st August 2005. Even that storm didn't have quite as much lightning.

[loopydreamer]

wow!!!! just....WOW!!!!!

thanks for sharing this with us AJ! great footage!!!! I hope we see more of these through the summer!!!

[ZONE 51]

incredible film n photos!! can't wait for the next chance of something down this way... and anywhere else if members can get vids/pics like that!! thanks

[4wd]

Probably a wall cloud as it approaches

[I remember Atlantic 252]

great stuff AJ, envy your pictures, I had exactly same storm of course but crappy pics, not even worth putting on here

and wish netweather would put times right, I didnt post this at 16.54, I was out then! I must have posted it at 6pm

[Lauren]

I'd definately say you had a supercell there.

[ANYWEATHER]

Excellent Stuff mate, about time the Uk saw some great Storms...heres hoping for a lot more like this to come

[Nick L]

ARGH, I miss the snow in winter and now I miss the storms in summer :lol:. Great pics though AJ.

[Jane Louise]

Well done. I'd love to to see an amazing storm like that.

[lboaty]

Wow how fantastic to be able to have witnessed and captured that beauty on camera. Still shaking now after watching it! Here's hoping the rest of 2011s storms are like this! (Not sure if my kids will enjoy them though :-( )

[TonyH]

Brilliant, gave me butterflies, hardly ever seen such an impressive storm in my life.

[A.J]

Thanks for your kind comments so far everyone.. .I feel really priveliged & lucky to have witnessed that monster storm

Just to add to what Weather09 posted, to save any confusion, last nights storm was not a supercell to the best of my knowledge, however it did have some visual characteristics shared with its more violent cousin, ie pronounced layered shelf cloud, bowing gust front & a marked inflow

[Sprites]

Spectacular !! , certainly one worth keeping, those trees near your house must of been scared lol,thanks for sharing the videos, lovely shelf too.

[Lauren]

By definition, a supercell is a thunderstorm characterised by a presence of a mesocyclone - a persistently-rotating updraft; there is no indication that this activity occured from the pictures and videos posted, nor from radar imagery of the approach and passage of the storm. I'm pretty sure that if we had a doppler network of radars, it'd show nothing of note concerning supercellular activity.

The storm had rather defined leading-edge outflow (the shelf cloud), and quite clearly its main attributes were relatively large hail and frequent lightning. Going back to the radar imagery, the returns (along with looking at the actual storm itself) would strongly suggest this was an organised thunderstorm, as regeneration of its core held together fairly tight whilst lighter precip was "fanned out" in directions ahead of the storm given sufficiently strong upper flows. This would suggest updraft/downdraft seperation. As a result, the updraft could be sustained for longer and have also gained momentum- leading to larger hail and more electrical activity. I think if the surface wind had been considerably stronger, i.e, winds gusting to low-mid 40s, I'd say this storm would have just about met 'severe' criteria. That and the fact that hail was roughly the same diameter as a 10p coin, and lightning was frequent.

But as I said yesterday evening, the bar has indeed been set rather high in terms of thunderstorm footage from the UK. Certainly can't see me capturing anything of the sort shown here for quite some time.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear. I meant to type it looked like he had a supercell. I'm only a newbie so I cannot even begin to tell one type of storm from another so to declare he had a supercell would have been foolish of me although I realise that's how it came across.

Basically what I was trying to say was it looked similiar to one. Thanks for the info regarding what a supercell is though

Forgive the newb