Incredible conditions here - tropical rain with large hailstones coming down - some 3-4cm in diameter!!!

Insane rain and hail !!!!

Sounds like you've got it now Andy.  What I found incredible was the constant thunder and it wasn't just rumbles, it was banging and cracking.  I hope you get some of that too. 

Goodness me - I cannot believe how intense that storm was in terms of rain and hail.   The hailstones were generally about 1 to 2cm across, with some irregular shaped chunks of ice about 3 to 4cm across.  Made an incredible sound as it came down.  Rain now starting to ease, much surface water here.

While the Midlands continue to be the Mid-West of the UK, In the meantime, here at Kentfordshire, the sun has come out after that dull and damp morning and it actually looks and feels proper summer-like for it. But that should help with the initiation process for later on this evening.
  But of course, with this unstable thundery-type set up, it's always very hard to predict exactly when, where and how storms will pop up, will find out at any time between 4 pm to 9 pm.

Ok, I've just had a look in the rain gauge now the storm has passed - and I've found an amazing 28mm of rain which fell in just 20 minutes!!!  

In fact, the bulk of that fell in 10 minutes when the rain and hail fell simultaneously.  A truly astonishing figure for my area - and beats a previous intense storm which occurred here on August 12th 2004 which delivered 25mm in 20 minutes.

Paul Knightley of TORRO has specifically mentioned Gainsborough as taking a direct hit from a significant cell. He was predicting large hail from it - seems he was right

All quiet here now with warm sunny spells, some towering cumulus around. Quite muggy. As you say, Ian, it's often a lottery who'll get a result with these conditions!  

It most certainly was a direct hit - definitely the most intense storm in terms of rain/hail I've ever recorded (over the last 32 years), and the largest hail I've ever seen also.

And on  top of that, we're just now getting another intense storm with plenty of thunder/lightning and torrential rain.  Amazing.

meto got their warning area cock on too

Well finally things are going quiet now after another thunderstorm dropped another 9mm in 15 minutes.  So, in total we've had 37mm of rain in just one hour!     

So, as well as the first storm being the most intense one I've ever recorded, I think I've seen the highest 1-hour rainfall total in the last 32 years also.

Had a brief torrential downpour after half 12pm with huge raindrops.

No thunder though.

Very humid still.

Congratulations It certinly looks impressive running the radar sequence.

Oh to be in Lincolnshire now the storm season is upon us. As per usual, diddly squat here on this side of The Wash.

Overcast here with thundery/plummy looking sky's.

If only we got electrical storm's like the one on the HollandGermany border atm

http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en

The cold Strait Of Dover is certainly doing a good job in keeping the cells over the French coast at bay. I wonder if it is worth taking myself and the camera gear down to the beach to get some distant lightning photos when it does become dark within the hour?

http://www.dortmund-airport.de/webcam.html

Just back from Capel Ian..spotted a couple of CG discharges over the French mainland to the SSE. Probably 40 miles away. There were a couple of distant booms too. The sky has exploded into life in the last 30 minutes, rare for convection to initiate at this time of day. Some new cells to the SSW look like they may affect us in an hour..here's hoping