CHASE LOG 8 JUNE 2003

[Guest ChaserUK]

Hello everyone - I am so annoyed I did not get up earlier and by that I mean soon enough to catch tonights storms!!. It started out to the West of London and moved very quickly, say 40-50mph NE towards Norwich. Below is a map with my own little additions on there, starting with the southernmost being Colchester moving North to Ipswich, Bury St.Edmunds and then Thetford, just to the South of Norwich:

Started out from Colchester about 1640 where these pictures were taken. At the time extremely windy, almost like strong inflow - lots of debris from leaves, branches and some of those were quite large!

Then started off up the A12 towards Ipwich, this being a NE direction. In the distance very good signs of organised convection and the winds were still blowing into the storm...

Then it was NW on the A14 from Ipswich to Bury St.Edmunds - I think this is where all went pear shaped - we got stuck behind a horse box and mooched along at about 15 mph whilst the storm continued on its merry way NE...anyway the photo clearly indicated we were getting closer

From Bury we again change direction and head up the A134 then A11 to Thetford. Luckily we found a decent dual carriageway this tiime and not a horse box in sight!!!! We put our foot down safely of course and in this pic you could see the storm out to our left and very decent signs of updraft right above us - we thought we would catch this storm for sure

Then we had to call it a day - this was just North of Thetford and you could see the storm in the distance towards Norwich, which shows up nicely on the 18z METO Radar above - you can see how close we got!!!

So there you have it, 2.5 hours and 150 miles and a bust - good fun however. Also, whilst listening to Radio 4 on the way we heard good old Rob comment on the storms, apparently "very colourful in the East", with "8mm hail reported" - and we got so close!!! :roll:

[Robert H]

cant see those images

[Guest ChaserUK]

I can!??! :? Can anyone else see them?

[Guest ChaserUK]

Have to admit they do seem rather tempermental - one minute there and the next gone! I closed the window and re-opened - there may be a problem given the total file size of the page?