What Is The Shortest / Longest Thunderstorm You Experienced?

[Dom W]

Longest

I remember one Friday there was a thunderstorm that lasted over 12 overs more or less, it started around 3pm and lasted all through the afternoon, all through the night and into the early hours. It happened from what was not a particularly threatening sky either, it was a pale white overcast sky.

Shortest

I Greece on a very warm evening. Had a few flashes of lightning, a brief shower that lasted a few minutes and then went. The people eating outside did not even budge.

[Alex95]

Longest - Paris, 6th & 7th August 2008 - 11pm until 8am, so 9 hours. More storms later.

Shortest - Keswick, some time in July 2007 - 5 minutes of torrential rain, 2/3 rumbles.

[LadyEv06]

Longest - definitely Tunisia, August 2008. Lasted from 6pm until early hours the next day. The biggest storm I've ever seen and amazing to see the sea light up with the lightning. We were sat on the beach loungers under the sun umbrellas watching!

Shortest - too many to remember. Infact I can't remember the last time we had a decent storm locally!

[Methuselah]

Last night's 'widespread and intense' thunderstorm was so brief that I must have missed it...

[Stormraider]

Longest thunderstorm I've witnesed was in 1995. I think 2 storms merged together to form one massive storm lasting 4-5 hours approx. Roads turned to rivers... next doors house was flooded as its placed a bit lower down a bank. At one point there was constant lightning for about 3 or 4 mins, one strike we thought had hit the telegraph pole 50 yards from us but it actually hit a friends back yard about same distance away. Dont recall any hail. Any storm since I compare to this one.

Had countless short storms, the odd flash and bang and its gone.

[Ben_Cambs]

Longest- Florida, April 2003- Lasted a good 12-14 hours with frequent lightning, thunder and torrential rain throughout

Shortest: No specific storms but several one or two rumble "storms" before moving on or dissipating.

[Neilsouth]

Last night's 'widespread and intense' thunderstorm was so brief that I must have missed it...

LoL

[Summer of 95]

Longest thunderstorm I've witnesed was in 1995. I think 2 storms merged together to form one massive storm lasting 4-5 hours approx. Roads turned to rivers... next doors house was flooded as its placed a bit lower down a bank. At one point there was constant lightning for about 3 or 4 mins, one strike we thought had hit the telegraph pole 50 yards from us but it actually hit a friends back yard about same distance away. Dont recall any hail. Any storm since I compare to this one.

Had countless short storms, the odd flash and bang and its gone.

That would be 10-11 July 1995. Here it started off with the first rain/thunder/lightning simultaneously at about 6.30. The rain was heavy for about 2 hours, but eased off to moderate stuff after that- the main thing I remember was the lightning. At least 4-5 flashes every minute through till about 1am. Strangely enough I could have sworn it struck a tree about 100 yards from where I was watching it! And the thunder kept going as well. A fantastic evening after a day that nudged 30C, and the day after reached the mid-20s as well.

A close runner-up was 19 June 2005.

[Nick F]

Technically the longest storm is really a number of storms merged together, i.e. an MCS, have experienced plenty of those over the years though can't recount the longest lasting. Shortest probably those one thunder-clap affairs you get in late autumn and winter in polar airstreams, again don't recall any particular storm.

[biddie]

just before or after good friday 98 rememner lots of storms for so early in yesr

longest that day was 8am till 4pm lots of cg strikes

shortest just odd thunderclaps

[MP-R]

Hard to say really.

Longest: 24th June 2005 from about 4am until 2pm. Although there were a succession of thunderstorms, there was still thunder and rain between them, probably from the one leaving and the next one coming. Quite an incredible day when I think about it; shame I was in school.

Shortest: 28th January 2004 in this country. Only lasted 10-15 minutes but very dramatic with rain turning to heavy hail then very heavy snow, bright lightning and deafening crashes of thunder. Or, an even briefer downpour that produced a bang of thunder in Brasil. You get those days when something drops out of anything and, because you're in Brasil, it produces thunder.

[Paul Sherman]

Longest probably Saturday May 5th 2007 in Kansas. Zero Cap meant that Storms were ongoing at around 9am started chasing straight away and was always on a Storm throughout all of that day, ended in Ellsworth (Ks) where we had to evade a Wedge Tornado, Hotel luckily got missed but storms still rumbling through, even at 5am the next morning we heard Hail roar from more Storms moving up from the SW. Finally ended around 7am if I remember correctly.

So about 22 Hours for Longest time sampling storms

This was also the day after Greensburg

Shortest - Well Pretty much most of the Uk Storms we get :lol:

[Methuselah]

LoL

But yesterday afternoon's was a whole lot better: probably close ninety minutes', give or take...

[Lauren]

Longest - August of 1997. Was an MCS that kicked off at about 6pm and kept going strongly all night and then died at around 7am the next morning. Fantastic light show, it was too loud to sleep and we all stayed up all night watching it. Several houses nearby were hit.

Shortest - A tie between Beijing (July 2006) and Thailand (November 1999). Both extremely potent yet short storms lasting around 2 minutes with torrential rain constant flashes and thunder and disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

[philglossop]

Longest Storm. Easy- 10th/11th July 1995. Went to bed early that night as on earlies at work the next morning- around 2230hrs. By midnight the thunderstorm moved up from the channel waking me and most of Plymouth up. Then it just grew in intensity- numerous buildings hit across Plymouth and it rumbled on for until around 0630hrs- by which time it was time to go to work. Think I got about an hours sleep that night (2230-2330). The next day, walking around Plymouth was very surreal, as most Plymouthians looked like they'd had no sleep and were walking in a daze. Also recall my line manager at BT calling head office and saying that no call data would come from Plymouth for that day, as all my colleagues on days were tired and slower on dealing with calls that day!

Shortest storm- numerous- although 1 storm in September 2009 had 1 flash and 1 bang. It hit the sub station and plunged Heybrook Bay/Wembury into darkness! And that was it!

Edited June 29, 2011 by philglossop

[AderynCoch]

Longest thunderstorm I've witnesed was in 1995. I think 2 storms merged together to form one massive storm lasting 4-5 hours approx.

I think I remember a Granada weather warning that night, saying exactly that. Back then of course weather warnings were often broadcast in the middle of advert breaks.

Incessant thunder and lightning until I eventually fell asleep during the early hours. There was still thunder the following morning, though it may have been unrelated.

[Phil UK]

Mmmm...

I think out of the many more prolonged thunderstorms I've ever witnessed, the most vivid in my memory was on a Saturday morning in July 1987. (Spanish plume ironically!)

It was about 8:30am when the sky went suddenly very dark, a mix of vivid IC and CG preceded the main area and for about five hours, it was almost constant close CGs and boom type thunder. Probably the loudest I've ever heard .

Just after 3pm, the storm (II'm guessing MCS but seemed like one singular massive cell) cleared, Sun broke out under still menacing skies but only for rapid convection to kick off with another two short-lived storms that followed later on in the same evening.

The shortest? April 1994. Had a mix of wind, rain which became wintry with hail and sleet and a sharp overhead crack of thunder. The morning of Christmas Day 1990 was another one after a cold front passed through with intense hail which you could have passed off as snow if you used your imagination a bit.

Phil.

[Gorky]

Longest probably Saturday May 5th 2007 in Kansas. Zero Cap meant that Storms were ongoing at around 9am started chasing straight away and was always on a Storm throughout all of that day, ended in Ellsworth (Ks) where we had to evade a Wedge Tornado, Hotel luckily got missed but storms still rumbling through, even at 5am the next morning we heard Hail roar from more Storms moving up from the SW. Finally ended around 7am if I remember correctly.

So about 22 Hours for Longest time sampling storms

This was also the day after Greensburg

Shortest - Well Pretty much most of the Uk Storms we get :lol:

Came here to mention that day. Don't know how we chased the following day after that. At least it was another fairly local chase!

[Paul Sherman]

Came here to mention that day. Don't know how we chased the following day after that. At least it was another fairly local chase!

God yeah forgot about that as well, on the 6th May we were up and out at 10am, took a quick look at the Greensburg damage from the West then cut east at Coldwater and got onto a line of Storms and Supercells moving up from Oklahoma , witnesswed a nice looking fat Tornado coming out of the rain (Nathan has the Video Grab of this) near Medicine Lodge (Ks) and then moved down the Line to Weatherford (Ok) What followed was an 800 mile Squall Line all the way down to the Mexico Border that went on until about 4am the next morning again :blink: :wacko:

So I make that about 40 hours constant out of 48 hours of Storms and Supercells, now wonder Aine was knackered!

Anyone beat that i wonder :lol: :lol:

[Gorky]

That storm was still ongoing well into the early hours at weatherford. WE had all those pylons and wind farms just out of town we could have gone to and taken some nice photographs but I don't think anyone even considered chasing any more. We were all way too knackered... To be honest I think my brain had kinda split up the medicine lodge storm and the weatherford squall into two days. I know I was pretty much comatose during the drive south! Was it the following day we were on the massive throckmorton ground muching gust front or did we get a rest day?

[Paul Sherman]

That storm was still ongoing well into the early hours at weatherford. WE had all those pylons and wind farms just out of town we could have gone to and taken some nice photographs but I don't think anyone even considered chasing any more. We were all way too knackered... To be honest I think my brain had kinda split up the medicine lodge storm and the weatherford squall into two days. I know I was pretty much comatose during the drive south! Was it the following day we were on the massive throckmorton ground muching gust front or did we get a rest day?

We thankfully got a rest day on the 7th May when we drive down the Caprock and stayed in Childress, the Throckmorton day was May 8th which was another amazing day considering an hour earlier we were in 12c and drizzle and when we emerged near Throckmorton it was about 80f with 60's Dewpoints and 2 Discrete Supercells.

That 1st week of May starting the 4th was some of the most intense and long lasting chasing I have done apart from maybe 22nd - 30th May 2008!

[Nick F]

Yes remember Ellsworth KS and Weatherford OK in the 2007 chase well too. Some locations just get stuck under a continuous train of back building storms that can keep coming all evening and into the early hours ... and in the US mid-west if you are stuck under a line of severe storms that long you're looking at horrendous flooding - certainly remember the next morning after we stayed in Ellsworth and driving SW there being vast tracts of the flat land in central Kansas under water.

[Terminal Moraine]

The longest storm I've experienced was on the August 5th/6th 1957. The thunder began during the evening of the 5th, continued all night and did not clear until around midday on the 6th. 151.6mm of rain was recorded at a site about 10km south west of where I lived at the time and even more is thought to have fallen about 3 km west of that point.

I remember torrential rain falling for a considerable period of time and my mother calling it a 'cloudburst' but I was much too young to be keeping weather records. It certainly contributed to my lifelong fascination with extreme weather though.