Nope, this has everything to do with it:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rmgfs032.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rmgfs036.gif

There was a huge MCS off the W coast of Ireland last week, Large expanse of water. No issues about that when it came to chucking out 20 strikes per minute, It's not about how hot it is, or how humid it is, or a small expanse of water,  it's about the available energy in the atmosphere and the ability to transform that energy into a storm.

The atmospheric profiles over most of the UK for today and tonight have never suppported sustained storms as we have seen over the continent. We have marginal instability, which has been shown on all models for the last few days. We should not be surprised that we are not getting the Coninental type storms. A lot of rain with the odd flash and rumble was always the likely scenario.

Only 4.5mm in Epsom so in no time by Monday everything would be dry as if nothing happen and no more rain forecast until after the coming heatwave late next week and probably another faliure to bring thunderstorms as usual.

Perhaps the stubborn 15C sea temps killed off the storms as we need higher sea temps to keep the storms alive while crossing from France to England.

Had 24mm so far this evening, still absolutely pelting it down out there.

Can't swallow this argument I'm afraid. How do you explain why we rarely get kind of the instability in the UK that we see regularly in the near continent? Got to be something to do with us being a island off the continental main.

Luck people of Amsterdam are just getting woken by a terrific storm. Lighning every 10 - 15 seconds.

www.earthcam.com/amsterdam

Bucketing down here...we are now under an Amber watch. This has been going for some hours now...though no flash flooding problems yet.

The Channel didn't stop the instability, the plume of unstable air defined the instability:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rmgfs002.gif

Saw once and that something missing from seeing it in here for many years now. 

well this side of Oxford, it lashed down around 17.45 for about 15 mins  2 rumbles (distant) then very heavy monsoon rain around 19.00 to 20.00 several booms of thunder heard ( but was in Tesco) so didnt get to see any lightning but the kids informed me that i was bright flashes.  plenty of road flooding around the town. great to see some proper rain to water the garden . the other thing of note was the temperature cock up by the met office  both the car and other thermometer were reading nearly 29 degrees , now unless my hearing is gone that figure was certainly not mentioned on ANY forecast i heard today ....... anyway my storm feel good factor has increased to 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being euphoric) lol.

Well a fair amount of rain  fell in a short 20mins burst at 4pm then from about 6pm it's continues most of the night and heavy at times, then about 7.30 there was a few flashes of lightning and some thunder but nothing to get excited about this time round apart from much needed rain.

The first evening rain in weeks came around 7pm... 30 minutes before the start of my birthday party in the garden.  Luckily we managed to squeeze 50 people under the awning and into the gazebo... with a nice waterfall between the pair of them (even though I joined them up). Rained for a couple of hours, with the odd rumble of thunder then it dried up and everyone began to move out into the garden... more rain later (past midnight, I'd stopped caring by then)... and then by 1am everyone had gone and we were going to leave the mess and tidying to the morning.

All of a sudden at 2am the wind picked up and changed direction, it became much cooler and the gazebo began to lift off the ground. So me, the Mrs and In-Laws were out there quickly taking down the gazebo, picking all the empties up that were beginning to roll around, turning tables over and generally making a big rod for our backs in the morning with a mad dash to tie everything down.

Certainly more of an eventful evening than my 40th party 5 years ago this weekend!!!!!

Still pouring with rain. A lot of surface water flooding about. Patio is under several inches of water.

Thundery trough departing N. Brittany should be with us later on this morning. See what this one brings.

This colourful chart shows how close we were to having an "epic" storm event yesteday: https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/21437_10151737455281306_898293830_n.png

I think we had a bit more than that; Wokingham had 8mm and Earley had 11mm as a band of rain developed over us as it moved north. Still, we had no thunder whatsoever; I saw you reported a single flash but we didn't even experience that.

My daughters have never experienced a proper summer-heat thunderstorm. As a child I seem to remember them happening annually, to the extent that I remember thinking of August as the thundery month and being scared of its coming each year!

My rainfall total from yesterday's sytem was 65mm in the end!

40mm in an hour or so from thunderstorms and another 25mm from general peristent/torrential rain.

I got 11mm and a lot of tediousness

Shocking to be on the 15th page of a second July Convection and Thunder Thread yet still have no decent thunderstorms to report

...I seem to be having a Jiries moment

Interesting chain of storms moving N. from France this morning - more victims for the Channel...?

Meanwhile some rapid development has occured a little way to my east, possibly relating to convergence N. of the IOW, but unfortunately it's obscured by other clouds.

CAPE of around 900 j/kg and LIs of around -2 to -3 possible this afternoon and evening spreading up from the SW over Wales, N. Midands and eventually Northern England. Nothing to get too excited about, but some storms possible in these areas later.

Didnt see any lightening or hear any rumbles,just a bit of heavy rain for a few hours,then light rain,good for the garden and kept the dust down,dont think nothing will happen today in my neck of the woods.

Nicely explained.

29mms of rain fall here yesterday upto midnight.

Just heard a massive crack of thunder - looks very dark and threatning to the north west of here.

Had some torrential showers again this past couple of hours. Sure I just heard a rumble of thunder to my North.