Apocalypse here. Marble sizes hail, torrential rain and almost constant thunder. Amazing.

And now the sun's back out

Big booming thunder from the cells to the east of the Pennines, I'm miles away but the floor vibrated! sky very black too as I look east.

The system leaving the French coast features old cells decaying... and new ones developing.

That's the hallmark of a multi-cellular system. Yeah... another one.

Just waiting for that to pass 40 miles to my east after the Andover supercell passed 40 miles to my west.

It really has been an extreme example of the wrong place at the wrong time across most of Central Southern England.

It's always problematic if you have a lot of potential but with the realisation of that potential being restricted to relatively small areas (compared to the whole of England). It can seem like there should be storms left right and centre, but the reality is that in many places the atmosphere is preventing this with a stable layer.

Paradoxially, that stable layer is the only reason why something as strong as the Andover cell could form, as it allowed the CAPE to really build up before a sudden realisation.

That cell over the French side is so itching to hop across the Channel towards Kent, but it's being like "Brrrrrrr, that water is friggin' cold". It may have to take a leap of faith and hope for the best.

But it now has grown very overcast at this end anyway.

Thunder just passing , no great shakes though

Oh WOW!  Did I get it?  That really was some storm.  The sky was swirling and the clouds looked like thick smoke going in all directions and then we got what I can only describe as a tropical storm.  I have never seen anything like that here and even the storms I've seen in Florida haven't produced a sky like the one we just saw.  My daughter phoned and asked if we had a tornado heading our way. 

We were at my mum's house clearing out her shed and had to run around like mad to batten everything down.  It was scary but exciting.  Mum has a very large magnolia tree that's a bit smaller now, as a large branch broke off with the wind and weight of rain.  Thankfully my car was parked under the side that didn't get damaged. 

Looks like the storms over NE France could be moving out into the North Sea but may have a twist and head back into Eastern UK. Lots of activity on sat24 with lines of storms to the west of Franc and in the Bay of Biscay could be waiting in the wings to enter the uk. Maybe gettinghere in the early hours...

A few models show this but they don't look as bad as last night/today - I reckon the worst of the storms are now over for the majority of us in the UK.

Bit gutted, I missed the storm overnight in Stoke as I was working in Birmingham, where it was thundery but most of the decent stuff was to the east and I was working so couldn't appreciate the storms. I left at 6am to dark skies and torrential rain all the way up the M6, but no thunder and lightning.

Today it has rained and felt like a dull winters day aside from the humidity making it comfortable to wear a t-shirt even without the sun. Think its all over, Stoke only had the one overnight storm and nothing whilst I've not been working.

Glad to see some people got there first overnight storms in many years. Sad to think this happens so infrequently. Radar watching the past two nights has been great.

Any of the advance party in Folkestone/Hythe/Dover see or hear anything from the incoming yet? 

Ta 

The air here is exaclty as it was last night, before hell came to visit - so still and eerie 

Well after 48 hours of failed potential in Reading, I'm all out of steam.

The elevated storm on Thursday night softens the blow a little, but the fact that my SD card corrupted on that day, with a new one not aquired until Friday afternoon, feels rather grim right now.

If only I had the spare cash, I could have trained it 20 mins to Oxford for that seemingly supercellular storm!

That's how close it came.

It's a very good thing that the weather isn't breaking down to an unsettled regime now, as I need decent summer charts to take my mind off what I've just endured.

It could have been worse though - past experience gave me the sense to get some 4-5 hours of sleep last night rather than spend my time watching every last satellite radar frame come along.

I will admit to getting a bit glued to the screen at times this afternoon though - but even that was broken up by several strolls outside to experience the heat and humidity, both the good sides and the not so good.

First few drops of rain, a the first rumble here too. Sky looks bland compared to last night's beauty 

Ooops! Flick of the lights too...

Yep, quite a few rumble in the channel odd flicker , dark towards south west.

Mark
Hythe
Kent

Originally Posted by: Caz 

Ta 

The air here is exaclty as it was last night, before hell came to visit - so still and eerie 

Originally Posted by: Jive Buddy 

I'd normally say thunder storms are so much better at night, but today's storm was an exception because if it had been night time, we wouldn't have seen the amazing cloud advancing towards us and I wouldn't have felt the rush of wind.  It reminded me of the 'Twister' attraction at Universal Studios theme park in Florida. 

Originally Posted by: whitelightning 

True! Same with last night's shelfie, and the eerie scene when the sun was still trying to poke through as it set. Reminded me a little bit, of the total eclipse!