It's a fully feldged MCS certainly. And I would call it as not just brushing the far SE.  Look for development more and more to the W in the Channel as well.

These intense storms which should clip Kent look pretty severe.

There seems to be very little else in the immediate few hours after this.

Would that be as expected or do you think the current cells knocking into Kent were expected to be further W and thus covering a larger area? If the latter, you could be forgiven for thinking that things have gone a littlle pete tong. I could be off the mark and it was never really until later tonight that sparks are due to hit a more widepread area of S England.

I concur. Super-impressive strike rates in that line and monsoon ppn. And it's only an advanced guard of the main cluster now forming over the W Brest peninsula.

Then we have tomorrows fun and games.

So, should I lock down and get the video cam fired up? Only one way to find out.

I think the metoffice needs to issue a tornado warning for the south coast. 

EHIs are 4+ in France which is easily enough for tornado formation. In the UK they are projected to be about ~1 which is enough for supercells. 

In a fairly large scale system like this it's not very common to find tornadic development. Any rougue individual cells that form are more likely candidates, possibly generating by splintering from the main system.

On the western flank there is a very real risk of that happening, although tbh I would have thought it was more likely in france. But the EHI is easily going to be high enough for super cells, Lis in france are in double digits. 

Looks like the storms are starting to approach Kent now, still some very bright echoes on the rainfall radar and frequent lightning strikes in the Channel 

Flat calm, 25c, becoming darker to the SSW by the second with occasional booms. This is going to kick off. 

I'm not in Eastbourne but friends are on coast, Eastbourne is under a barrage, multiple forked lighting off Rottingdean and flashes overhead in Worthing.

I'm in Mid sussex and its constant booming (but distant) thunder.

Hell of a storm somebody is having

I've been watching these live lightning sites for a while, I've never seen anything like this:

http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&page_0=12

Good luck all the guys/girls in Kent, this looks like a big one.

Confused, is this storm approaching the SE suppose to be the main system thought to be distributing storms across more western/central areas early tomorow morning?

Precip rates are off the chart still. Anyway the storms are hitting the south coast now. 

Just seen the first flicker of sheet lightning over the Channel and it's come over all ominous. Off to spectate, but don't like that heavy rainfall returns on the radars.

Yup, 'tis true....many Kent folk are monsters (especially round here) 

I'm caught in two minds over this one: One one hand, I haven't seen a decent light show since I was in South Africa, but on the other hand, I'm on duty tonight, and holding the call out phone 24/7! I'd rather sit and watch it skim by, than have to gou out in it methinks