SE, London and East Anglia Weather Discussion - Dec 2023 on

[Freeze]

First day this year I've had to take my jumper off, that sun is warm!

[Summer tyre]

Big cell developing just south of us -  a cloud went over and dropped some big spots of rain and a bit of hail, got offshore and erupted!

 

[Mark wheeler]

 Reefseeker omg I knew it was close but it was even closer than I thought. The building at the end of our road was hit by the bolt we both heard . Literally about 70 meters from our home . Feel fortunate it missed us but sorry for those affected , hopefully they have insurance. Speaking to neighbours other homes near the strike also have damage.

[andymcpool]

Hello!

[Reefseeker]

 Mark wheeler Wow, it's no surprise your ears were ringing being so close! At least no one was hurt I suppose. My husband (who is brontophobic) got really stressed because he is sure he saw sparks outside our back door as the thunder struck. It's definitely the first time thunder has shaken the entire house!

[Harry's House]

Hail shower at the RSPCA cattery in Ashford around 12.50 pm.

[lassie23]

I haven't seen any birds nesting so far this spring and not many queen bees or wasps either

[Sprites]

 Reefseeker 

If you watch close lightning strikes on YouTube , there are often orange sparks coming from the the object that gets struck. I've seen this myself when a telephone pole (70 metres away ) was hit last year. But the sparks I saw came from the telephone pole that was two poles away from the one that was struck as the lightning travelled along the cable. The workers I spoke to the next day said the lightning destroyed about 600 metres of cable. 

 

[Summer tyre]

One of the major hazards of lightning strikes are ground potential shifts; a lightning strike a few tens of metres away can cause a very large ground potential gradient, to the extent that the ground under your right foot can be hundreds of volts higher than that under your left. Apparently, that is a far larger cause of lightning-induced deaths and serious injuries than actually being struck directly. If you are caught outside in lightning, above all don't lie down - make sure you keep your legs together to minimises the distance between any points in contact with the ground. Entire fields of cows lying down have been killed by lightning strikes for this reason. Equally, this means that nearby electrical equipment can suddenly find a large voltage difference across it and the effect is that the lightning appears to have jumped invisibly to damage it. It hasn't, of course.

[Vortex3929]

A bit chilly towards the end of next week it seems. And terrible headaches to come from 900mb! Thankfully we must be in the "eye" given the light winds and sunshine

[Freeze]

Good day today, lots of sun just a couple light showers and 15c, warmer than expected.

[alexisj9]

 lassie23 they seem to be doing ok here, had a garden full of bees when it was sunny, it was nice, seen a few mummy bumble bees, but one of those dead in a web, nature is cruel sometimes.

[alexisj9]

 Vortex3929 guess a model broke, no dought someone is forecasting snow next week from this.

[Neilsouth]

Cold and windy all day, with a number of showers up until the afternoon...

But hey I'm sure it will be "MILD" according to the met 

[Neilsouth]

Grim....

[Freeze]

I actually think the last week has been decent. Low teens but long sunny spells most days and here we've been sheltered from the wind coming from the North. Another sunny morning and feels warm in the strong sun

 

[Neilsouth]

 Freeze West is best....

Here in Kent I'm still waiting for the Global Warming to kick in

[Summer tyre]

According to my weather station we had 2.4mm of rain at 10 am today. Actually I serviced it and changed the batteries so the rain bucket got shaken around a bit!

[Neilsouth]

Hail showers!

[MAF]

can someone wake me up when winter is over please

[Freeze]

7 hours ago, Neilsouth said:

West is best....

I agree but I'm not exactly west, I'd say west is warmest perhaps.

[Blessed Weather]

A lovely sunny start for most of the Region this morning - clearest in the east but thickening cloud in the west. Unfortunately for local gardeners and allotment holders, given the cold air mass we're under, the result has been an extensive ground frost as overnight temps fell to 2.4C.

Satellite this morning:

https://www.sat24.com/en-gb/country/gb

The occluded front just to our west not making much progress during the day, with areas near the east coast maybe holding on the clear skies all day.

GFS cloud cover forecast:

08.00  23.00

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/royaume-uni/nebulosite/3h.htm

[Summer tyre]

Temperature log for the last 30 days here. Max 16.3. Min 3.2. Steady downward trend for the past 9 days, which is bizarre in April.

Edited April 22 by Summer tyre
can't add up!

[Sparky68]

Very , very cold for April this morning the wind is bitterly cold

[Blessed Weather]

On 22/04/2024 at 08:20, Blessed Weather said:

The occluded front just to our west not making much progress during the day, with areas near the east coast maybe holding on the clear skies all day.

Well that was a bust GFS forecast on Monday. And even the lunchtime news (with weather provided by the Met Office) were still forecasting that sunshine would prevail all day in the east. In the end the front crept further east to give a very grey afternoon with rain setting in around 16.00 here. Very disappointing. Here's how it looked at 14.35 and in the far distance you can see the last of the sunshine disappearing from view.

Back to today, Wednesday, and the temp is a chilly 6C at 09.30 following a hail shower.