To think... I could have been back home in west Hants at this time. I would have more or less lost the will to live knowing that I could have been right in the thick of it here in Reading 

Winchester is showing just 0.3mm of rain. I need an ark here!

Seems to be something vicious brewing just south of Thame now - a notable upturn in CG strikes and rainrates over the past half hour.

It appears to lie at the heart of the convergence zone, which makes the overall storm motion tricky to determine. The 2:15-2:30 movement suggests due S which would land it right on my doorstep - surely I'm not in for a second helping of the most active storms?!

A nice hook in the Channel off the W Sussex coast, Perhaps France will import from us!

Further tropical-scale rainfall for a good 10 minutes there... surely this is now one of Reading's largest rainfall events ever recorded.

What's actually rather worrying is that the system is still developing new cells on the northern flank, and also the easterly drift is slowly starting to win out over the westerly, such that the convergence line, now more or less stalled, will start to gradually edge westward as we move through dawn.

This should keep the most intense convection either close to or across Reading... and then there's that suggestion from EURO-4 of reinvigoration tomorrow, though WRF-NMM has it happening a bit further SW.

The torrential rain and lightning has suddenly sparked back into action yet again as I type.

Probably the best night storm I've seen since I moved here in 2005.

Probably 25mm of rain based on water filled objects outside and that battered the garden sadly.

Awoken by torrential rain and thunder just after 1am and hears the last thunder just after 4am when I fell asleep!

And yet it is staying high and dry at this end, thus the Kent Rain Deflector remains as effective as ever. However, the lot was well modelled by Euro4 - as least as direction and positioning were concerned - so I'm not that surprised/disappointed. Although it looked like that storm cell was more active than we thought so it made for an exciting start to the day for those who had experienced it.

A novel angle of approach for this area - thunderstorms should come from the south, not the north!

But nevertheless, a nice sight to be woken up by, ca 3am, though it seemed like fewer CG strikes here and more between clouds than reported above.

not a drop here and looking at the radar those storms fizzled out pretty quick when they hit the channel. certainly local forecasts got it very wrong as they were only talking of a few sharp showers yet it was a sizeable area of rain with some potent storms embedded within. just shows the potential with a hot day and an approaching area of cold upper air 

Sod all here last night bar a few light showers.

Good for some of you though I see.

During the 3 hour spell starting midnight, the rainfall was often torrential, and spent more than half the time in the 16-70mm/hr range... a big range, yes.

So perhaps 25mm is a reasonable representation, although I suspect Whiteknights Campus might have had a higher value as it scored a few more direct hits than Benson... in fact about as many as anywhere in England as far as I could tell!

Today, GFS is keen on substantial shower development again, and EURO-4 is still showing something in the same sort of region. WRF sort of has something but seems to fizzle everthing out shortly after it gets going, except along the South Coast where it develops a marked convergence line that is most likely a result of the sea breeze meeting the northerly airflow. The UK doesn't often see that sort of thing happen to a large enough extent to bring notable precipitation, so it will be interesting to observe if it occurs.

The radar is showing some cells already building to the NE of Reading, to the SW of which is an area of pleasant sunny spells which I intend to take a short walk in to seek out any surface water flooding from alst night.

As an observation - the air temperature is nearing 20*C again already, and the dew point is in the mid-teens - in other words it still feels very muggy here, which implies that the airmass hasn't actually changed that much over the past 24 hours.

No wonder there is a fair bit of convective potential again!

Some showers have developed over NE Notts.

Warm and humid here.