A Couple Of Questions About Yesterdays Storms

[Sam Kennedy]

I usually check the CAPE and LI forecasts before we have storms, but yesterday I was more distracted by getting cameras set up in time etc.

Does anyone know what the peak CAPE and LI values were for the North East?

I'm also wondering about the flooding, I was following the line of storms on radar, and the reflectivity values weren't much higher than what I've normally seen from storms, however the structure and direction of the line resulted in Newcastle being exposed to the storms for a much longer period of time than if the line just passed perpendicular to the city.

I guess my question is, was the flooding more to do with the prolonged precipitation due to the structure and direction of the line, as opposed to the "heaviness" of the rainfall?

Cheers

-Sam

[Sainsbo]

I usually check the CAPE and LI forecasts before we have storms, but yesterday I was more distracted by getting cameras set up in time etc.

Does anyone know what the peak CAPE and LI values were for the North East?

I'm also wondering about the flooding, I was following the line of storms on radar, and the reflectivity values weren't much higher than what I've normally seen from storms, however the structure and direction of the line resulted in Newcastle being exposed to the storms for a much longer period of time than if the line just passed perpendicular to the city.

I guess my question is, was the flooding more to do with the prolonged precipitation due to the structure and direction of the line, as opposed to the "heaviness" of the rainfall?

Cheers

-Sam

Hey Sam,

I'm sorry that I can't answer your first question; I'm not great at reading them things, but as for your second question, even though the rainfall was heavy and torrential, it didn't seem to be much heavier than what we have had before, but due to the size of the storms, there were some places near newcastle upon Tyne and such that would have seen prolonged torrential rainfall for an hour or two, so I guess it's kind of a combination of the two.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Sainsbo

[I Cumbria Marra I]

they were only around -2/-3 but it was around -7 near London yet they didnt get a drop of rain

[Alex95]

The lifted index isn't the only factor though - NE England had a less negative LI than many other parts of England. We had a trigger, which was the trough which moved in from the west. It was originally moving S- N, then suddenly started moving eastwards and intensified over the NE.

The factor which caused the flooding, IMO, was the intensity - officially, 55mm fell in 2 hours in Whitley Bay. If it fell at that intensity for half an hour we wouldn't have seen so many problems, but if 55mm fell over 24 hours we would be fine. The storms expanded rapidly when they reached the NE, and this seemed to make them more prolonged.

Btw, Newcastle's storm was off the scale on the radar! So it would appear the same as any other storm which is off the scale.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Alza

[knocker]

The SB, ML and MU cape for Nottingham ar 12z were 441, 179 and 368 J/Kg. Li 0.