Certainly a fair amount of lightning flashes quite some way away but nothing heading this way, more in the direction of Matty I would think, or heading that way.

Just seen this on the BBC, freak hailstorm yesterday in Cornwall

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23997586 

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Low rumbles of thunder woke me up during the night and dammit I fell off into a deep sleep. The wife said it became

quite loud with lots of lighting and thunder... Doh!

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There was a storm here in London around 5am but I don't have any chart about it!

The convergence zone near the South Coast has produced a very active thunderstorm! Lightning has already hit the ground in several places, thankfully no buildings or trees just yet...

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I am astounded having just witnessed the most intense hail storm of my life!

Hail kept chucking down for some 10-15 minutes, mostly pea-sized. A substantial covering was created on the grass and even tarmac surfaces and pavements! Lightning was frequent as the event drew close, then become less so as the hail got underway. There were still a few close strikes during the event though!

I'm struggling to type this as my hands are frozen - it feels like it's only a few degrees above freezing out there! 10 minutes after the last of the hail and the grass is still white!

More dark clouds are looming to the SW and the convergence zone is barely moving - and there goes another flash of lightning with loud thunder! Could be round 2 coming right up...

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Very envious.  How do you work out where the convergence area is?

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I just look at the cloud arrangement on satellite; a sharp cut-off in convection near the coast represents where the stronger near-shore winds are preventing convection, while the bottom edge of the cloud usually sees convergence at the surface as the winds slow down.

Another shower is being born as I type but it's not half as intense as what I had an hour ago. Some of the hail from that event is still lying on the grass despite it feeling much warmer out there. The sun's out too.

After waiting seven years for a decent thunderstorm, today has been very satisfying. The thunder and crashing hail was music to my ears I'm getting to work on a video which I'll put on youtube. I should warn you that my voice will feature at times

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Torrential shower with hail

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Would you mind if I shared your video on my weather page?

Not at all Should have it uploaded this evening with any luck 

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Thunder and torrential rain !
Amazing skies here

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMTIJ7r_TQ8&feature=youtu.be

There it is

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Nice one

Great vid

Thanks for the comments

Unfortunately I haven't got a reliable precipitation total because the hail quickly blocked the funnel of my rain gauge (it's a DIY job with units determined through calibration against other measuring devices).

All I can say is that it had collected around 27mm by the end of the event.

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Just added some more detail to my video, here's what I came up with:

"The storm was very locallised, with nothing much reported 10 miles south of here, and very little 15 miles north... it basically reached it's peak right over my home town.
I could see from wind obs that it was driven by the coastal convergence as the airflow off the Channel was slowed. Interestingly there were actually two seperate showers followed by a third weaker one, which all peaked right over this same location. That implies that the topography - probably the shallow valley I live in - was playing a major role in today's event."

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As yesterday, thundery activity may well get inland.

There is currently a nice arc of showers moving NE from the Hampshire/Dorset coastal border with recent sferics near Eastleigh

There's a thunderstorm overhead here - I wondered what it was at first (listening to music through headphones!)

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Absolutely chucking it down now - there's some hail mixed in with the rain too.

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Fine and quite sunny here under the Folkestone Weather Shield but the western horizon is filled with anvil-topped cumulus as they do that bypassing-to-my-north-west thing once again.

But my thinking is that I could get to see a flash or two over the Channel tonight as the showery activity may last well into the evening.

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In southsea looking north from 3rd floor and it looks like some rotation an lowering of wall cloud of a shower just to my north.

No definitive rotation as it passed right overhead but a decent shelf and gust front on it. We had a short hail spell of hail with it.

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Very dark here as heavy showers approach from the SW.

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