A new cell has developed to the SW of Newbury. A few strikes showing up. I can see the rapidly developing cb in the distance.

 

One rumble has now becaome frequent rumbles. Off out to check for sparks...

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Ah that would explain why it's gone so dark out .

 

It hazed over quite a while back (maybe 6.30 pm) and it's been getting greyer and more ominous looking out there ever since.

The haze is in fact high level cloud from the major cells over northern France

Can now see multiple cells developing in a line behind the initial cell to my west.

All kicking off here. Thunderbolts cloudbursts fork lightning

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Starting up here. Rumble, rumble

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Off and running now - sparks increasing

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It looks like this one is just grazing us to the west. About 60% of the sky is really dark and ominous and there's a few spits of rain in the air.

 

Thanks for that. I didn't realise it was spreading this far west.

Maybe something will happen later then. Fingers crossed.

Nice presentation of that cell on the 2015 radar. You missed the core by no more than about 2 miles.

On the SW edge of the storm here but gosh the lightning discharges when they do occur every couple of minutes are very impressive. 

A fantastically tropically thundery weekend..very noteworthy. 

 

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A few short sharp strikes seen here, but it now looks to be moving off to my West. House on fire 5km due south of me, not sure if it was struck - but there was a bolt came down in that area. If we are called to it, it's just down the road from our vehicle

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All of a sudden the convection stopped and the cells decayed rapidly as shown on the 2030 radar.

Just as suddenly the convection has fired up again in the same location and more cells are developing rapidly. I love watching this kind of set up especially as twilight approaches. Hoping to see a few flashes of lighting in the next hour of two.

Here is a pic of the latest and closest cell to me

Some nice looking cumulus cloud tops tinged red with the sunset. Nice evening here, very warm and no wind. The humidity earlier was unbearable but now it's thankfully dropped.

I think there is some very low cape values across this area so i wouldn't rule out the storms to the S  of here building up more, probably unlikely but the potential is there.

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A bit lively in Dunkirk at the moment!

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Trying to swing round aren't they? East Anglia could get a look in.

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Another fantastic day of music and thunder at the excellent Dover Music Festival. John Paul Jones Blues Band . Quality.

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Amazing how these are so localised. Not seen or heard a rumble since late yesterday evening. Just miserable grey crap most of the day and very humid.

It sounds like Kent is the place to be tonight and I wish I were there on our fave campsite in Kingsdown.  We'd discussed and dismissed having this weekend there but if we had, I'd have missed this afternoon's storm here and that would have been a sin.  Enjoy the light show down there and fingers crossed for more in the East Midlands!! 

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For those who have been saying the forecasts for storms have been poor I would strongly disagree. Nailing down storms in this kind of set up is notoriously difficult but I think generally the models have done a good job. For example see my post above from Wednesday evening when the short range NMM model was predicting a Kent clipper for Saturday evening. Well that is exactly what has happened.

Yesterday evening's storm packed more of a punch, even though there were a good number of big bolts earlier on this evening as the French cell trundled close by.

That scary looking gust front will be etched in my memory for a long time.  It truly has been years ago since I last saw one of those.  I was more frightened of that than the lightning which followed because those usually produce strong gusty winds which, as you know, is not my favourite weather phenomenon.



Once that passed over us, then the "core" of the storm cell arrived an hour later and I got treated to a fairly prolonged lightning display. Surprisingly little rain fell so it made it a joy to spectate and take photos off, as you can see below.

Taken from the relative safety of my front door porch at 9 pm to 10 pm.







And I even got to have a second thunderstorm in the small hours but that was more "causal" in nature and was the one meant to be as forecast anyway.

And now, the lighter (as so to speak) side of it . . .



I'm now quite stormed out, especially what with me being the admin of my very own weather page on a certain social web site where I think I've got too immersed in, so I'm going to have a break from that and now am looking forward to that long spell of bright, settled and warm weather as we go into next week.

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Great pics Ian!!! I just got back from Florida recently were you see a storm every day but there is something slightly different and special seeing it over your own house !

Can see lightning to the South of Norwich now , quite distant and no thunder yet, hopefully it can cross over.

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22c and now raining north of norwich! Plenty of lightning and very loud thunder.

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