Uk Convective General Discussion & Forecasts - May 2012 Part 3

[JamieUK]

Any chance of a storm in Central Southern England this evening? The storm charts look favourable???? ( to my very untrained eye haha. )

[Eskimo]

Some potentially severe storms on tuesday going by latest models.

[Convective]

Oooh, nice tower going up quickly on the webcam in the bay. Can't tell whether its just a cumulus or a congestus with haze blocking the view of the bottom.. what do you think?

http://www.dotet.co.uk/index.php?type=webcam&id=25

[Lewis]

Looking to get some storm chasing done soon and have a massive network of all the 100 users off the group "well as many as possible" and we need the storms first!

Feel free to be part of the UK's growing Storm Chasing group

https://www.Null

[Sprites]

Doesnt look like much threat of thunderstorms now untill mid next week at least, though i reckon we should see something before October lol.

[slb97]

Good evening all, South today weather just mentioned a possible thundery breakdown on Monday night into Tuesday but as ever time will tell!

[Cheshire Freeze]

Can see an increasingly developed congestus ESE of here....anyone in the vicinity have visuals of this?

[Cloud 10]

Recent satellite image tells the story of the day with isolated heavy showers/storms over and near northern

high ground.

Rather more activity over the continent.

[Stormraider]

A tower to the NE of Telford way in the distance and looks like one Birmingham way too.

Can see an increasingly developed congestus ESE of here....anyone in the vicinity have visuals of this?

Looks like the one I can see to my NE

[A.J]

Am surrounded by some rather impressive towers, very dark to my east.....whether or not they can go electrified is open to debate, but encouraged never the less by this mid evening convection

[Lewis]

Decaying cold front?

Thunderstorms today (and yesterday) have been largely driven by topographical uplift, which was much as expected several days in advance.

Today's storms was sparked by a cold front and an upper trough moving from the east. The thunderstorms brewing up today down the central belt of Scotland and CN England was due to high dew points and surface heating along with the cold front, cooler air displaces the warmer air, pushing it upwards., allowing the formation of cumulus, and as John Holmes said earlier, turning in to towers.

I agree with you that topographical uplift came in to play for these areas, but the cold front/trough aided this by forcing the air to a higher elevation.

Edited May 24, 2012 by UK Storm Chasers

[NL]

Is a shame that the energy that has built up over the past couple of days has gone largely to waste.

Just thinking the very same..up to 2100j/kg of energy today gone/going to waste must be awful for you people under that and getting absolutely nothing..

No trigger no bang..!!

[Lewis]

Cheers for the brief lecture, Lewis.

Erm... someone care to help me out here.

Far from a lecture Weather, just expressing my thoughts on the situation, apologies if i'm wrong, but the timing of the cold front/trough across central parts of the regions coincidentally formed thunderstorms/cells.

I never said you was incorrect or did not "disagree with you" I just felt the cold front/trough played a part today.

[DAVID SNOW]

Cheers for the brief lecture, Lewis.

Erm... someone care to help me out here.

Perhaps i can,your posts are informative and you know your sfuff regarding storm potential,but you sometimes let yourself down with your sarcastic comments to those that perhaps understand less than you do.

[Eskimo]

Perhaps i can,your posts are informative and you know your sfuff regarding storm potential,but you sometimes let yourself down with your sarcastic comments to those that perhaps understand less than you do.

Not ganging up but I totally agree. A lecture? Hardly.

[staplehurst]

Far from a lecture Weather, just expressing my thoughts on the situation, apologies if i'm wrong, but the timing of the cold front/trough across central parts of the regions coincidentally formed thunderstorms/cells.

I never said you was incorrect or did not "disagree with you" I just felt the cold front/trough played a part today.

Not sure where you're getting a cold front from? No troughing either, purely convergence and topographic effects, hence they have all formed in areas with high ground. The cold front (more like a boundary between the warm, moist air and the cooler much drier air - there's no notable cloud nor precip associated with it) will move westwards tonight to bring some lower dewpoints for tomorrow. It hasn't even reached our shores yet, thus had no effect on today's activity...

Edited May 24, 2012 by staplehurst

[Lewis]

Not sure where you're getting a cold front from? No troughing either, purely convergence and topographic effects, hence they have all formed in areas with high ground. The cold front (more like a boundary between the warm, moist air and the cooler much drier air - there's no notable cloud nor precip associated with it) will move westwards tonight to bring some lower dewpoints for tomorrow. It hasn't even reached our shores yet, thus had no effect on today's activity...

Hi staple,

I looked at this chart when the thunderstorms/cells fired up;

https://secure.metoffice.gov.uk/lib/images/ukarea_mslp_crop_18_t+24.gif

Shows the trough at 6pm this evening across them areas (slightly further West of the zone).

Maybe you can forgive me for believing this was one of the factors for todays thunderstorms, after-all I only looked at one chart lol.

Lewis

[I remember Atlantic 252]

the fax charts seemed to be showing a cold front, then it clears tomorrow turning clearer from the east

[johnholmes]

Far from a lecture Weather, just expressing my thoughts on the situation, apologies if i'm wrong, but the timing of the cold front/trough across central parts of the regions coincidentally formed thunderstorms/cells.

I never said you was incorrect or did not "disagree with you" I just felt the cold front/trough played a part today.

I see no cold front either and the reasons for ts occurring in rather widely spread locations is as my earlier post.

An upper trough perhaps, I can't comment on that as I have not studied the upper air enough to make comment.

[Robbie Garrett]

Is a shame that the energy that has built up over the past couple of days has gone largely to waste. Height falls aloft and cooling mid levels would have seen moderate or strong thunderstorms develop. Easily. Maybe even with sfc temperatures to 30C or above the result may have been different.

But, overall, certainly no surprise to see non-existent storm activity away from the usual favourable regions under such a setup. Always next time, I guess.

Are we talking about something similar to the storms that form over Africa in the ITCZ as a result of surface heating?

[Lewis]

I see no cold front either and the reasons for ts occurring in rather widely spread locations is as my earlier post.

An upper trough perhaps, I can't comment on that as I have not studied the upper air enough to make comment.

John i've seemed to cause some confusion, call it sketchy model viewing on my part, what I was explaining about was the trough associated with an approaching cold front behind, the upper trough being one of the "triggers" to aid convection.

Regards to Weather09, I was not disagreeing with you at all, if you look at my last sentence I agreed with you.

No hard feelings?

Edited May 24, 2012 by UK Storm Chasers

[Hodgheg]

Sat in the garden with a cold beer, Lazy summer evenings, all we need now is a thunderstorm. Feeling quite optimistic about next week, more unsettled but still warm and CAPE/Li potentials. As for today all that CAPE/LI but the boundry layer capping everything, maybe if we all try to blow up into the sky we can get something going?

[lorenzo]

Just thinking the very same..up to 2100j/kg of energy today gone/going to waste must be awful for you people under that and getting absolutely nothing..

No trigger no bang..!!

I think this sums up today quite well really, not going to dwell on it not going spark. Still an amazing day.

[Lewis]

Yesterday and today in particular clearly shows how much energy you can have out there, and without the all important key ingredients "trigger" that energy will go wasted.

Not to worry though, i'ts only May, we have plenty of time for some of the beloved spanish plumes. I'm quite happy the way the models have been/setups have been of late, we are trending towards a more high pressure dominated period of weather, and I don't think it will be long until we have that perfect setup with the orientation of high pressure with very warm uppers sourced from the near continent, and a stagnant area of low pressure close by feeding in lots of energy, that is when this board will be screaming the house down

Summer has only just begun, bring them storms on!

Edited May 24, 2012 by UK Storm Chasers

[Jane Louise]

Oh well! not many of us had a storm today, the potential was there but only a few got one. Still there's plenty more time yet I'm now looking to Sunday and next week. You got admit it's been gorgeous weather though!