Heavy rain was always the headline news for the bulk of the country rather than intense electrified storms. The CAPE charts I posted a couple of pages back showed that the energy is simply not there on this side of the Channel.
It's got nothing to do with the Channel being a block to severe storms, it's the atmospheric profiles being incapable of sustaining the intensity of these convective areas.
This
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rmgfs036.gif
tells a pretty good tale about what is happening. Good instability on the near continent, with marginal values over the UK in the East Midlands creating weak storms that are now drifting into the W Midlands and NW England.
Overall, the main story for the UK is the rainfall.
Originally Posted by: Arcus
Chicken and egg surely. The channel must have something to do with it, as the intensity and electification of these storms drops dead as soon as it hits the French coast.
Originally Posted by: RobN
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.
Originally Posted by: Arcus