Uk Convective General Discussion & Forecasts - May 2012

[Paul Sherman]

That's exactly what last night was - thundery rain...

Classic moisture plume breaking down into a mass of rain/thunderstorms.

I think what Neil was trying to get across was the reference on the Beeb and Met was for an area of almost dynamic rainfall with rumbles of thunder (Eg Thundery Rain)

These earlier Storms were in the form of Elevated Thunder Showers ahead of the Trash moving in from France and Benelux, I counted at least 4 to 5 Different Elevated Storms across South Suffolk and South Essex, I had perfect clear slots in between and could see the Tops lighting up in between the showers.

So might be some confusion between the 2 terms as is always the case, but yes the breakdown was from the Moisture Plume feeding in from the SE From the approaching System.

But also no-one could have foreseen the local Mesoscale Features that happened last night near the Coast as the Storms almost left turned and went due west, much in the same way no-one saw the Warm Front which showed up in Kansas at such short notice yesterday and produced Tornadoes was outside any Risk Boxes!

[Coast]

Looks like the storm forecasts by the usual dedicated sites are coming to (or already have come to) an end and we seem to be left with the inevitable rain.

21st OWS still have an area under forecast for midday:

Continuing in the SW through the afternoon:

No other clear evidence of a continuation of the thunderstorms however:

A small area of spout interest in Kent, nothing to go wild about just yet:

[Coast]

Possibly a quieter convective period on the books, but very early indications of it building again through next week in the North and more so in the South?

[legritter]

torrential now for past 15 min ,but showing signs of breaking up over central parts . as the song goes ,breaking up is hard to do ,dont take your storms away from me , comeon baby lets start a new , well cant think of next line but lets hope it finishes with a BANG , and the next pulse is getting redder , and heading further north ,cheers

[NO LONGER POSTING]

flooding being reported near Reading and Bracknell...in my way into work lots of flooded roads..

[Chris K]

Saw one or two flashes in the distance in the early hours which according to the radar was towards Gloucester way. Other than that I had some torrential rain and thats it. Why did I stay up...why.

Was an interesting radar watching session anyway.

[swash]

Fairly routine journey to work this morning, big lake next to the M25, but no flooded roads.

Not aware of any storm activity overnight.

[Harry]

Whilst I'm a keen admirer of storm enthusiasts (being one myself), some of the posts in the thread have bordering on the ludicrous....By all means, post your storm reports (not forgetting to post your storm reports also in the 'storm reports' thread) but please, please moderate your use of the over-top posts full of capital letters, screams, YAHHHOOOOOS of every flash of lightning etc etc, it makes the thread hard work to read and there are lots of sensible posts and requests for forecast updates that are getting utterly drowned out........

In answer to the posts requesting updates in the forecast for the midlands etc I would hazard a guess that there are reasonable chances of these storm clusters surviving for some considerable time and may well affect those regions later on, as storms are elevated in nature and are feeding off WAA thus do not rely on surface heating or even so much on low level moisture..As long as the mid-level air retains this WAA then it will continue to destabilize...Worth noting though that as the LP centre over Biscay drifts further west, storms may develop a more pronounced westerly component...Still, exciting times for many folks tonight in central & southern areas through the night!

Yeah that be me - had a few glasses of wine last night so by the time storms arrived I was even more exciteable than normal. Although tbh, I will stop short of apologising! I personally find it entertaining reading other people's drivvle and excitment flashing up (that's just me though).

Had an amazing storm here in Oxford just after midnight! LOTS of lightning and thunder, including some direct overhead strikes. What confused me very much, though, was that as soon as the storm started to die away I switched on my computer and checked the lightning detectors (Netweather and blids.de), expecting to see something impressive, but instead saw absolutely NOTHING over Oxford! The nearest strikes were shown as being in the London/Luton area! How's that possible, when I counted about 30-40 lightning strikes and some of the thunder was right overhead?

Exactly the same for me BB...not entirely sure how or why, but there was about 50 or so strikes which happened over N Kent/Medway/Thames Estuary region around midnight last night, and pretty much none of them were detected....odd!

[NO LONGER POSTING]

Anyone seeing Wednesday night into Thursday...? Or is that just going to be heavy rain..

[A.J]

Yeah that be me - had a few glasses of wine last night so by the time storms arrived I was even more exciteable than normal. Although tbh, I will stop short of apologising! I personally find it entertaining reading other people's drivvle and excitment flashing up (that's just me though).

Exactly the same for me BB...not entirely sure how or why, but there was about 50 or so strikes which happened over N Kent/Medway/Thames Estuary region around midnight last night, and pretty much none of them were detected....odd!

It wasn't just you 'H', when the others joined in, jeez reading the thread became hard work...you were on the sauce?..ah that explains it then...lol

well on to today, a quieting down day by the looks of things, another train of storms have left Belgium in the past hour or two, but have lost all electrification over the north sea but are currently producing some very heavy rain over Norfolk...Moving into the central England and the west country, here we have the remnants of last night's fun, with widespread light to moderate rain with a few pockets of heavier rain embedded, which should start to die out as the afternoon/evening progresses

[snow raven]

Typical, 30 minutes after I went to bed last night and a storm kicks off. Guess what - I slept through the whole thing. Gutted

[Robbie Garrett]

Anyone know what happened to the MCS, when the forum went down I went and laid down. But never got woken up. The best thing about last night was the power of that storm that Harry got, by the time it hit London it was nothing but heavy heavy rain.

Anyways If this is a thing to come then wow, considering conditions where so marginal to keep things going... then I wouldn't be surprised to see another big night.

[BB1979]

Typical, 30 minutes after I went to bed last night and a storm kicks off. Guess what - I slept through the whole thing. Gutted

Yup 12.30am it got lively in Barnehurst. More of a lightshow than anything. My little one and wife slept right thru the thunder which is unusal for them both. I meanwhile was up at the window looking like a peeping tom . Lasted 35mins or so.

[Eskimo]

Anyone know what happened to the MCS, when the forum went down I went and laid down. But never got woken up. The best thing about last night was the power of that storm that Harry got, by the time it hit London it was nothing but heavy heavy rain.

Anyways If this is a thing to come then wow, considering conditions where so marginal to keep things going... then I wouldn't be surprised to see another big night.

As it approached the UK it just fizzled out in heavy rain which is pretty standard procedure.

[Neilsouth]

You could see it dieing at about 2am even the band into ea was decaying, i went to bed near 3 though lol

[slinky1989]

According to the radar we had a storm over us with lightning at about 2:40am.

No chance of me being up at that time!

Oh well, onto the next time!

[Andy Bown]

Still getting heavy downpours in Wiltshire from a line extending NW from the Hampshire coastline.

It's kind of like a convergence line and has been going for several hours with much clearer air/sky immediately to the South.

[MP-R]

No thunder or lightning here overnight but quite clearly some decent rain by the rain guage in the garden. Everything was a bit too far east and west last night.

Mum (in Yatton, North Somerset), said she saw lightning to the southeast of there last night before going to bed.

[VillagePlank]

Alas. It looked like the fuel for those monsters ran out by the time the cells made UK landfall.

Hindcasting, the key player in last nights events was, as previously mentioned, nothing to do with surface heating, but rather advection of suitable conditions for thunderstorms to initiate and sustain.

We had a long feed of moist air from E Europe as the LP system dropped SW into Biscay. Associated with this, temperature advection from the near continent traversed the channel providing a direct feed into southern and eastern areas of the UK. You can see how the feed veers eventually cutting off the life-support for the thunderstorms by 3am.

Unusually, t/storms degraded to showers because of mesoscale synoptic movements.

Still, good fun

Edited May 1, 2012 by Boar Wrinklestorm

[Lynxus]

Odd line of heavy showers along the M4...

Actually not so odd.

Just seen that they are dead on the convergence line.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Lynxus

[StormChaseUK]

Yes was just looking at that area from Reading. Good line that.

[Lynxus]

Yes was just looking at that area from Reading. Good line that.

Seems to be loosing steam though. Wasnt expecting much from it

[Robbie Garrett]

As it approached the UK it just fizzled out in heavy rain which is pretty standard procedure.

You could see it dieing at about 2am even the band into ea was decaying, i went to bed near 3 though lol

Classic, I think we need a more southerly wind component to get a real import MCS... I noticed the storms died out as they where heading westbound.

[DAVID SNOW]

UHI Effect producing something in London?

[Paul Sherman]

Have witnessed 2 Funnel Clouds in the last hour near Leigh On Sea - Incredible Shear up there with massive Towers but Cap Holding, First Funnel was cone shaped and only 2/8 to the Ground and 2nd was horizontal