Storms and Convective discussion- October 2023

[StormLoser]

Whilst continuing living in my small, local lightning cold-spot, I noticed this intriguing article on Space Daily science site:

Scientists figured out what causes Earth's strongest lightning

WWW.SPACEDAILY.COM

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Jerusalem (SPX) Oct 02, 2023 - Superbolts are more likely to strike the closer a storm cloud's electrical charging zone is to the land or ocean's surface, a new study finds. These conditions are responsible for superbolt...

Fascinating to see that our neck of the world gets "strong lightning"...

Edited October 4, 2023 by StormLoser

[The Tall Weatherman]

1 hour ago, StormLoser said:

Whilst continuing living in my small, local lightning cold-spot, I noticed this intriguing article on Space Daily science site:

Scientists figured out what causes Earth's strongest lightning

WWW.SPACEDAILY.COM

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Jerusalem (SPX) Oct 02, 2023 - Superbolts are more likely to strike the closer a storm cloud's electrical charging zone is to the land or ocean's surface, a new study finds. These conditions are responsible for superbolt...

Fascinating to see that our neck of the world gets "strong lightning"...

Have just been reading about this and is very interesting. It explains that a lot of the worlds super bolts happen in the English Channel in the winter and that many of these lead to TLEs (like sprites and elves. I really do wonder that one day somebody in the England will get a crisp sprite capture.

On the relationship between lightning superbolts and TLEs in Northern Europe - ScienceDirect

WWW.SCIENCEDIRECT.COM

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Lightning occurrence at higher latitudes in northwestern Europe is by far less frequent than mainland continental and the Mediterranean during most of…

 

[Southern Storm]

36 minutes ago, The Tall Weatherman said:

Have just been reading about this and is very interesting. It explains that a lot of the worlds super bolts happen in the English Channel in the winter and that many of these lead to TLEs (like sprites and elves. I really do wonder that one day somebody in the England will get a crisp sprite capture.

On the relationship between lightning superbolts and TLEs in Northern Europe - ScienceDirect

WWW.SCIENCEDIRECT.COM

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Lightning occurrence at higher latitudes in northwestern Europe is by far less frequent than mainland continental and the Mediterranean during most of…

 

Photographing sprites in the UK will happen one day  but I feel that any super bolts that do occur will be few and far between, especially in winter, so it'll take some serious dedication to get that shot, and I'm not sure how far you'd need to be from the storm to give clear view of the of the cloud tops and that's before you take into account that it will probably be cloudy in preferred locations further north, maybe the French will have a better chance 

This was taken in Dordogne!

 

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Edited October 4, 2023 by Southern Storm

[Eagle Eye]

2 minutes ago, Southern Storm said:

Photographing sprites in the UK will happen one day  but I feel that any super bolts that do occur will be few and far between, especially in winter, so it'll take some serious dedication to get that shot, and I'm not sure how far you'd need to be from the storm to give clear view of the of the cloud tops and that's before you take into account that it will probably be cloudy in preferred locations further north, maybe the French will have a better chance 

This was taken in Dordogne!

 

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The UK is such a hard place to get sprites. You have no idea how big they are in reality. The reason they look small in camera is that generally people have to take them 100s of miles away from the store. It's actually quite hard to find a place to do that because it's so crowded. 

[Metwatch]

10 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:

The UK is such a hard place to get sprites. You have no idea how big they are in reality. The reason they look small in camera is that generally people have to take them 100s of miles away from the store. It's actually quite hard to find a place to do that because it's so crowded. 

I think a good place to try to spot them would be in the mountains of south Wales, or maybe Malverns / Dartmoor.

Issue being is very few people would go there at night especially south Wales ahead of night time imports from France.

[Southern Storm]

9 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:

The UK is such a hard place to get sprites. You have no idea how big they are in reality. The reason they look small in camera is that generally people have to take them 100s of miles away from the store. It's actually quite hard to find a place to do that because it's so crowded. 

It might be worth trying to get a picture of sprites over over Northern France, how far are away do you think someone would need to be, and what kind of equipment would be needed? 

I can't imagine any standard Digital camera could capture sprites apart from some Sony bodies along with a good prime lens, the images on sony cameras are usually very clean even when cranking the iso all the way up

Too costly for me to switch now but I probably would go Sony if I was just getting into photography 

 

[Eagle Eye]

7 minutes ago, Metwatch said:

I think a good place to try to spot them would be in the mountains of south Wales, or maybe Malverns / Dartmoor.

Issue being is very few people would go there at night especially south Wales ahead of night time imports from France.

It would still be quite hard to see them as well. For maybe a couple sprites, it wouldn't be worth it. Parts of the USA are obviously the best for it, flat land for 100's of miles and no trees in the way. Another place would be, would be to go in the countryside in either the Peak District or Yorkshire, there's a decent amount of storms that happen south of there that you could get a good view of. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Eagle Eye

[Southern Storm]

I'm sure I posted this a while back but it seems like a good time to repost for those wanting to learn more about sprites

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Southern Storm

[Metwatch]

Sprites Galore

UKMETEORNETWORK.CO.UK

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Friday 27th May 2017 a large storm rapidly formed over Devon and Cornwall. Wilcot camera detected a record 23 sprites in a single night

May 2017 great example of quite a few caught on monitoring cams and some in 2020 as well.

 

[Southern Storm]

3 minutes ago, Metwatch said:

Sprites Galore

UKMETEORNETWORK.CO.UK

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Friday 27th May 2017 a large storm rapidly formed over Devon and Cornwall. Wilcot camera detected a record 23 sprites in a single night

May 2017 great example of quite a few caught on monitoring cams and some in 2020 as well.

 

Great find! 

So it appears that there has already been a UK capture of sprites, and they appear to be reasonably bright which is a surprise for me as I've always thought they were very faint, when in fact they look to be almost visible to the naked eye.

A new weather phenomenon has been added to the list of things to photograph, it could be a long wait  

[weatherobsuk]

I've always wondered why sprites aren't considered a direct danger to aviation, call me naive but i've never seen direct measuring of these 'charges' other than speculation based on visual density & volume. My own theory is that sprites aren't lightning at all but simply cloud-ground based lightning being illuminated by a atmospheric source (lets say the same meteor crystals that make-up Noctilucent Clouds). Much like Sundogs/Rainbows/Crepuscular Rays are atmospheric reflections/refractions of the sun.

Edited October 4, 2023 by toggerobz

[Southern Storm]

For those interested in sprites and attempting to photograph them, this is a very good video outlining best practice for video and stills

 

[Mapantz]

On 04/10/2023 at 21:20, toggerobz said:

I've always wondered why sprites aren't considered a direct danger to aviation

They occur around 40 to 50 miles up.

[Metwatch]

26 minutes ago, Mapantz said:

They occur around 40 to 50 miles up.

And planes go around thunderstorms, not over them, as sprites are directly above them normally.

[ChannelThunder]

Some lovely Accas around today; if I didn't know we were under HP, I'd be hopeful of some late-season action later!

[Alderc 2.0]

2 hours ago, ChannelThunder said:

Some lovely Accas around today; if I didn't know we were under HP, I'd be hopeful of some late-season action later!

Plenty of accas here! 
 

[Metwatch]

Some lovely looking plumey skies this afternoon as well, more like ahead of a summer plume! 

Timelapse shows them nicely, with the high cloud much higher up than the altocumulus. 

[Sprites]

4 hours ago, Metwatch said:

Some lovely looking plumey skies this afternoon as well, more like ahead of a summer plume! 

Timelapse shows them nicely, with the high cloud much higher up than the altocumulus. 

Nice skies 

Taken with phone? 

[Reefseeker]

10 hours ago, ChannelThunder said:

Some lovely Accas around today; if I didn't know we were under HP, I'd be hopeful of some late-season action later!

Indeed, Hampshire and Dorset skies all looked hopeful this afternoon. 

[Metwatch]

1 hour ago, Sprites said:

Nice skies 

Taken with phone? 

Yes, Samsung S22

[WeatherArc]

Think the season is pretty much over now, always think it is when you see more sea based cape than over land and dewpoints drop. Pretty happy overall with this season, i think July and August stopped it from becoming a historic year for convection but still had some great t-storm events mixed in between the duller months. 

Below is a big compilation of radar loops/lightning maps and storm photos for what i think were the top 3 events this year

June 11th

 

September 10th

 

 

September 18th

 

Honorable mentions 

This cap busting nuke of a storm in Ireland on September 8th 

 

And one of the most beautiful storms i've ever seen in Oklahoma on September 24th 

 

Feel free to put any other storm photos or radar loops ive missed out below. 

Apologies for the massive post but felt it was nice to look back on the year, probably the last time for a while i'll be posting on here unless we get a december derecho 2023 was a great year for storms, lets see if 2024 can beat it! 

Edited October 9, 2023 by WeatherArc

[A Face like Thunder]

Monday 12th June 2023, two humdinger storms here over two hours. 

[sunnijim]

Thunderstorms being mentioned in the M.O warning across the South of England,Thursday night into Friday.

What do our resident experts see as the trigger for this?

UK weather warnings

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

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Met Office UK weather warnings for rain, snow, wind, fog and ice. Choose your location to keep up to date with local weather warnings.

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by sunnijim

[Ryan H]

This is the CAPE Forecast for tomorrow according to the weatheroutlook.com FAX model around 6GMT.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Ryan H

[Cheshire Freeze]

Tonight looks potentially severe to me (especially in terms of rainfall)? I suspect there will be a squall line forming which could potentially become tornadic?

Look at that razor sharp boundary between airmasses

Edited October 12, 2023 by Cheshire Freeze