Storms and Convective discussion - June 2023

[WeatherArc]

11 minutes ago, Ben Sainsbury said:

UKV now on board for Sunday. Shows warm-sector development, looking impressive! Northern England favoured.

Hopefully it can shift slightly southwards, would love to chase but anything north of Birmingham is just impossible for me.

[Aiden2012]

Nice walk with the dog to finish the day, first pic was the cell up near malton, second pic is the cell that’s still going near Driffield hopefully Sunday is a better day

[ChannelThunder]

20 minutes ago, WeatherArc said:

Hopefully it can shift slightly southwards, would love to chase but anything north of Birmingham is just impossible for me.

Same here from POV of catching a ferry and then hitting the road from down here. I don't think I could justify chasing north of the Midlands as it'd be a lot of effort, time and fuel! Perhaps I'll just wait for the next supercell-level event for the M4 corridor or thereabouts, whenever that might be! 

[viking_smb]

be interesting as I'm working this weekend at CBYC as we have our shanghai cup and I will be out in the channel on a rib marklaying, glad I will have my offshore kit, if we do have storms I will get photos 

[Arnie Pie]

Some times you need eyes in the back of your head

[Iceman2606]

Small time-lapse of storms developing over Northants from this afternoon.⛈

 

 

[Ben Sainsbury]

UKV 03z looking exceptional for Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna lie...

[Aiden2012]

30 minutes ago, Ben Sainsbury said:

UKV 03z looking exceptional for Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna lie...

I can only dream it comes off only at work for a couple of hours then all day off so I’m not getting to excited just yet

[minus10]

33 minutes ago, Ben Sainsbury said:

UKV 03z looking exceptional for Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna lie...

Not for down south unfortunately...lets hope on the day we get a few surprises...

[A Face like Thunder]

Strange that today's weather should be affected by a warm front, given the weather of the past few days. Less surprising that Sunday's weather focuses on a cold front which has the potential to be particularly active. I'm hoping it won't be over an Open Gardens event which we are attending in Shropshire on Sunday afternoon!

[Supacell]

Another chase yesterday, that's my ninth storm chase this year which is a lot for this stage in June.

The day was close to being somewhat of a failure. I had noticed cells trying to get going over the Peak District through the midday period and the striking thing was how slow moving they were. However, I felt the best chance would be a little east so I avoided getting drawn in by these and waited at home. Soon a cell sprung to life about 5 miles to my east over Ripley and so now I jumped in the car to began the afternoon chase. I quickly caught the cell up (it was almost stationary), and was now just to the east of Ripley and moving very slowly in the direction of Nottingham. There was a lot of standing water left behind, unsurprising considering how slow everything was moving. The thing the cell was lacking though was lightning. Even so I continued to follow it eastwards in the hope it would fire and by the time it reached Hucknall it did produce a couple of flashes that I saw from my car, but that was it. 

Even so I headed into Nottingham with the showers but the showers were now just heavy rain. It seemed like something was missing today and so made the decision to head home. As I checked the radar I did notice more robust developments on radar towards Lutterworth/Leicester but figured I'd never get there in time so put it out my mind. However, on seeing the sign for M1 south I couldn't resist and decided to just go for it!

Whilst I was driving down the M1 I could see from the lightning detector that the storm was producing a serious amount of lightning. As I approached Junction 22 there were some threatening skies ahead (to the southeast) and this was the point I turned off and onto the A50 eastbound. Annoyingly the cell had died somewhat by the time i'd made the 50 minute journey to catch it up, but lightning was still being detected in it and so I stuck with it and eventually came to rest not far from Syston/Barkby where I had a view of a nicely structured storm cloud producing some feint flashes. I couldn't hear the thunder over the wind, so it wasn't particularly loud at this point. It appeared to be moving slowly towards me.

Actually, the core of the storm was heading a little further south than me and so I moved south a little to stop near to Beeby. By now the lightning was more vivid, the thunder much louder and I even saw a couple of bolts (one of which I definitely caught on camera). It wasn't long before the rain set in though and it was torrential with huge 50p sized raindrops, so it was a case of running for the cover of my car.

For the next hour I drove around, stopping, getting out to observe and then driving again to avoid the rain. The storm was pulsing up and down but eventually pulsed out completely where I was, whilst intensifying to my east in the direction of Oakham and on into Stamford.

I decided to abandon the storm I was in and headed east, driving on very wet roads. As I approached Stamford the skies ahead were very dark and soon I was under a torrential downpour with winds and flashes of lightning. A huge CG bolt hit just to the side of the car and the thunder was like an explosion, if only it had been out of my front windscreen. The roads were quite badly flooded as I drove into Stamford and as I drove through the town there were numerous flashes of lightning and lots of rain. 

I ended up parked near to the village of Barnack to the east of the town but by now the lightning activity had died out completely. I didn't deem it necessary to chase any further and so headed home with roads still flooded as I drove back through Stamford the other way.

Considering the slow start in April and early May, things have really turned around and June 2023 is almost as good as the June's of 2020 and 2016 for my storm chases (with a whole week left to go). If Sunday comes off then June 2023 will go down as my best June ever

[Guest]

3 hours ago, minus10 said:

Not for down south unfortunately...lets hope on the day we get a few surprises...

It’s been dire on the south coast, one small storm on the 9th Jan, and a couple of very distant flashes a few weeks back.

[ChannelThunder]

22 minutes ago, Alderc said:

It’s been dire on the south coast, one small storm on the 9th Jan, and a couple of very distant flashes a few weeks back.

This sums it up. 



What makes it funnier is that I live in the small dark grey area on the IOW showing zero storms  It'd be the same back to the start of the year too, let alone this month!

[Eagle Eye]

Two ESTOFEX Level 3's in a row is rare. I think today is going to be a bust though.

[Ben Sainsbury]

stormforecast.eu for Sunday.

[James1979]

57 minutes ago, ChannelThunder said:

This sums it up. 



What makes it funnier is that I live in the small dark grey area on the IOW showing zero storms  It'd be the same back to the start of the year too, let alone this month!

What's worse is when you live right on the edge of the action, can see it unfurl but it stays away time and time again.  Torturous.

[camturbo]

So am I assuming that at the moment sundays storms potential is sort of m4 northwards or will it move southward?

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, Alderc said:

It’s been dire on the south coast, one small storm on the 9th Jan, and a couple of very distant flashes a few weeks back.

I've only had one storm on the 9th May!

[ChannelThunder]

30 minutes ago, James1979 said:

What's worse is when you live right on the edge of the action, can see it unfurl but it stays away time and time again.  Torturous.

Yep, this is exactly what's happened so far. I've seen CGs and heard thunder several times in both April and June, from a combination of dying channel storms and inland convection over the New Forest, but absolutely nothing overhead!

[ChannelThunder]

1 minute ago, camturbo said:

So am I assuming that at the moment sundays storms potential is sort of m4 northwards or will it move southward?

Unlikely to move southward, but the front will pass over the south too, so I reckon there'll be a few isolated storms possibly as far south as the M4 corridor, but they won't have the punch of those in the north where the better energy, sheer and moisture is.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Eagle Eye said:

Two ESTOFEX Level 3's in a row is rare. I think today is going to be a bust though.

Should be interesting, will be flying along the Croatian coast in about 6hrs….bumpy bumpy!! 

[Eagle Eye]

45 minutes ago, Alderc said:

Should be interesting, will be flying along the Croatian coast in about 6hrs….bumpy bumpy!! 

Though it's near the end of the risk time could definitely be a bumpy ride.

[Nick F]

06z GFS still indicating severe thunderstorms possible on Sunday Midlands northwards - as a sharp upper trough and preceding surface cold front move eastwards and engage high theta-w airmass . Lightning Wizard, which uses GFS, shows significant tornado parameter and supercell composite areas over Midlands to NE England. E Mids to Lincs and up through S, E and N Yorks looks prime area for severe weather looking at CAPE and the severe parameters mentioned.

 

[matty40s]

Slight case of mammatus above the pyramid stage at Glasto.

[Scuba steve]

5 minutes ago, matty40s said:

Slight case of mammatus above the pyramid stage at Glasto.

Should stay dry through and that’s the bandstand