Southeast England & East Anglia, Weather Chat...July 1st 2015...

[stainesbloke]

After a lovely summer day where temps reached a very pleasant 26C here, some beautiful plume clouds appeared this evening. Stunning as the sun went down! Wish the warmth would hang on this week, seems very difficult to get more than one day at a time this summer.

[lassie23]

I'm sun burnt!  Was 28c today.

Edited August 2, 2015 by lassie23

[Spikey M]

There is a low, but worth mentioning risk of thunderstorms for the South East coast tonight. Fingers crossed.

[Ben Lewis]

Hello Ben,We need rain here!From Monday to Friday my family had a caravan holiday in Hopton (Just in Norfolk, between Lowestoft and Grat Yarmouth. It was freezing cold with a strong northerly wind most of the time with heavy showers on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons with water running down the streets in streams. Thursday morning was also unsettled. Friday morning at the site was pleasant and fairly sheltered from the breeze. We had to drop our youngest son back at Huntingdon on our way home to Chelmsford and made the mistake at stopping off at Gortlestone for the afternoon. It was a big mistake as it was absolutely perishing with a strong wind blowing the sand into our faces. As soon as we traveled inland the weather warmed up noticeably.Whenwe got home our neighbours told us they had not had a drop of rain and our plants looked very sorry for themselves. It was nice to enjoy a bit of a warm up!Kind RegardsDave

Hello Dave,

You do not need rain, we are one of, if not the.. Wettest country's in Europe.

If your plants look sorry for themselves, fill up the watering can or take a hose and poor/squirt the water over the plants. Problem solved.

[Jimmyh]

Sorry Ben have to disagree in some parts of southeast during July they were down 30% of expected rainfall levels and the point is this summer has been dryer than expected a wind has blown for most of summer and it is exceptionally dry where I live in welling. Even the wettest periods haven't done much. For avid Gardner's or people with nice lawns rain is needed.

[Jimmyh]

Add onto that how many terrible rain days have we actually had in the last 2 months. I can count 1

[stainesbloke]

Cloudy morning here and windy, shame the nice weather only lasted a day. Quite warm at 21C though.

[alexisj9]

Looks quite windy out according to the speed of the cumulus outside, but warm and sunny mostly. 

[seaside 60]

Hello Dave,

You do not need rain, we are one of, if not the.. Wettest country's in Europe.

If your plants look sorry for themselves, fill up the watering can or take a hose and poor/squirt the water over the plants. Problem solved.

What a very strange harsh thing to say.

Even if we are one of the wettest country's in Europe, we still have drought situations or periods of very low rainfall.

We very much do need rain, esp in the summer, yes it would be nice for it to rain just at night, to enable us humans to make the most of t he daytime weather.

[Ben Lewis]

What a very strange harsh thing to say.

Even if we are one of the wettest country's in Europe, we still have drought situations or periods of very low rainfall.

We very much do need rain, esp in the summer, yes it would be nice for it to rain just at night, to enable us humans to make the most of t he daytime weather.

Hi seaside,

Harsh thing to say? I only said we don't need rain (this summer)

Dry desert drought summers then absolutely!

Vegetation is green, crops are growing nicely & as far as I'm aware all farmers are happy! So I stick to what I say.. We don't need rain and I don't want rain. Here in Hertfordshire any dry hot days have been replaced by days of torrential rain.

My plants are doing fine as I own a watering can.

Not long to wait until the fields are bogged and flooding is all over the news!

I'm going to enjoy the Dry warmish weather this coming week.

[Ben Lewis]

Add onto that how many terrible rain days have we actually had in the last 2 months. I can count 1

We've had about 5 heavy rain events here, 2 of them causing major flooding to my town.

Areas to the SE of London have been much drier though.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Ben Lewis

[Jimmyh]

Ben once again I have to disagree the torrential rain u speak of has thus happened via thunderstorms???. Coming back to your initial comment not everywhere is green lush. My ex's garden is like a dust bowl. Lawn is practically non existent due to the dry summer. I would say that 5 days this summer resulted in flooding in your town is dubious.... That would put it on par with some of the wettest summers in recent years unless u r talking downpours...

[Tim Bland]

Not too dry here in Stevenage either,  Grass is nice and green in most areas

[Ben Lewis]

Ben once again I have to disagree the torrential rain u speak of has thus happened via thunderstorms???. Coming back to your initial comment not everywhere is green lush. My ex's garden is like a dust bowl. Lawn is practically non existent due to the dry summer. I would say that 5 days this summer resulted in flooding in your town is dubious.... That would put it on par with some of the wettest summers in recent years unless u r talking downpours...

Hi Jimmy,

I never said I had 5 ocassions of flooding, I said 2 out of the 5 occassions caused major flooding in my town!

As your dubious please read:

http://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/st_albans_and_harpenden_homes_hit_hard_by_thunderstorm_1_4157009

http://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/concerns_mounting_about_flood_damage_to_st_albans_homes_1_4167329

http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/story/2015-07-25/summer-soaking-brings-floods/

Plus that god awful day where it rained rained and rained all day a a week & half ago or so - can't remember the date!

The flooding issues where due to the torrential thunderstorms but we still had half a months rainfall from them plus the other half a months rainfall from that awful cold raining day in July!

So that's why I don't really want anymore rain here - it's simply untrue that we need rain (well for my town anyway) Parts of the fields are still muddy and wet even now! Drought/dry conditions it certainly isn't.

However I understand folks in the more SE of the region have had less rainfall but like I say just fill a watering can and pour it over your plants.. Voila.. :-)

Edited August 3, 2015 by Ben Lewis

[claret047]

Hello Ben,

I think there have been two problems this summer as far as my area is concerned. Firstly much of the rain has been convective in nature and therefore very much hit or miss as to one area receives any precipitation whereas another a few miles down the road receives a real soaking. In the main we have missed most of the showers/storms and any frontal rain has diminished on its way across Essex. This is a common occurrence for us and Shoeburyness is often quoted as the driest place in Britain receiving less rain than Tel Aviv and some other Middle East locations.

The other factor this year has been the number of windy days. This year has had the highest number of non-calm days since the 1950's. This dries out the soil greatly. Add to this the fact that much of Essex is situated on heavy clay as a result of the last Ice Age you will appreciate that dried out clay is the least manageable of soil to deal with.

Kind Regards

Dave

Edited August 3, 2015 by claret047

[Rain123]

It all seems to be very formal on here today. 

Just had a few spits and spots of light rain. I hope all of you in kent tonight get a 'thundery event' tonight. WHERE'S MY THUNDER?!

[stainesbloke]

Disappointingly cloudy and windy here again today after another one day wonder of sun/warmth. Barely 21C now yet in the 30's just across the Channel. So annoying!

[Ben Lewis]

Hello Ben,I think there have been two problems this summer as far as my area is concerned. Firstly much of the rain has been convective in nature and therefore very much hit or miss as to one area receives any precipitation whereas another a few miles down the road receives a real soaking. In the main we have missed most of the showers/storms and any frontal rain has diminished on its way across Essex. This is a common occurrence for us and Shoeburyness is often quoted as the driest place in Britain receiving less rain than Tel Aviv and some other Middle East locations.The other factor this year has been the number of windy days. This year has had the highest number of non-calm days since the 1950's. This dries out the soil greatly. Add to this the fact that much of Essex is situated on heavy clay as a result of the last Ice Age you will appreciate that dried out clay is the least manageable of soil to deal with.Kind RegardsDave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your post, can't believe Shoeburyness receives less rainfall than Tel Aviv and some parts of Middle East! Well you learn something new everyday!

I take it all back what I said about not needing rain. Haha

You guys most definitely need it then!

The UK is such a crazy place, Hertfordshire is next door to Essex and yet we've probably had double/triple your rainfall..

Cheers

Ben

[Blessed Weather]

Not a bad day here. Fairly cloudy at times and an annoying wind (again!) but it was a warm one at 24C. A little bit of interest tonight - will the thundery showers clip the SE corner and the extreme east of EA, or will all the activity be out in the North Sea? 

 

Euro4 goes for a few light showers over land and the thundery showers develop overnight but out to sea.

 

Midnight  Tues 03.00  Tues 06.00 

 

Met Off seem to agree with Euro4: 

 

Rainfall radar is interesting though. Some heavy showers over the Channel Islands look as if they may develop further and be heading for the SE corner? 

 

[Methuselah]

^^ Folks in East Kent and Lowestoft could be in for bit of a lightshow, intervening stratus permitting?

[Blessed Weather]

Nice sunset this evening!

 

[alexisj9]

The storms have fire east of here, not sure we will get anything now. 

[Blessed Weather]

Yes, the thunderstorms developed well out to sea. In fact this morning's Real-Time Lightning map shows them still firing off out in the middle of the North Sea.

 

Beautiful start to the day and not a cloud in the sky. 16.8C at the moment and it should feel a bit fresher today, but the wind will be a pain again.

 

Great cloud cover satellite shot this morning with the Low off the NW corner of Scotland and some wavy altostratus undulatus clouds making for a spectacular image. Unfortunately the clear skies over our Region are under threat later from that advancing cloud.

 

07.50

[Ben Lewis]

Beautiful start to the day here, walked the dogs over the fields.

Clear blue sky's and lush green everywhere!

Becoming cloudy later by the looks of it though :-(

[Rain123]

Its suddenly gone all dark here. Looks like there is a few light showers around.