Apart from a short burst of heavy rain with even some hail at about 1.30 and the photogenic cloudscapes, it has been a fairly uneventful day with some good sunny breaks. Felt a bit on the chilly side in the brisk north west wind, though, but very nice in the sunshine when in south-facing sheltered areas.

Good day across England tomorrow for pulse storms, very slow moving so some locally large rain totals possible. Hail and thunder may feature, depending on just how much surface heating is achieved.

I was lucky enough to be down in Falmouth, Cornwall over the weekend visiting family & boy did we experience some wild weather! Hail, Snow & sleet, closely followed by sunshine but cold on Saturday & then very high winds, huge swell/waves (as some will no doubt have seen from various pictures/videos posted online) & a good old electrical storm on Sunday. Then leaving yesterday morning it was brilliant blue skies & very warm. Couldn't have picked a better weekend for interesting weather, loved it! 

18.8c 

sunny morning but big black clouds to my West , looks promising 

18.8!! It's 4 C here with a strong NE wind and sleet!!

Unsurprisingly, the French get to have the lion's share . . .

 

There was torrential rain and a thunderstorm this afternoon at work in Faversham, Kent.

My horizon from SW in a line heading NE is now filling with anvils as showers kick off to the west of Southampton..

BUT!!...

Nothing compares to this mammoth over Cherbourg at the moment..

Some impressive convection building in this area, and looks very explosive towards my north - and this is why: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

EDIT: I'm expecting a storm to erupt in this area shortly (ie further south than the current storms) - looking very ominous now with huge convection and black base.

EDIT AGAIN: Yep, rumbling away now with quite a loud one just then

Bit of a grumbler close by and did look impressive over them thar hills when viewed from the relative safety of Folkestone.

The rain rate around the Canterbury area (particularly to the west) must be impressive. Wonder if Gusty is being able to go on a cheeky storm chase since he has the car (bit tricky for me as I gave up driving six years ago and I don't think public transport would cut it   ).

Shows how powerful and localised that Kent storm cell was: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/morrisons-evacuated-after-lightning-strikes-94203/ Yet not a single drop fell here at Folkestone (just went overcast for a short while but the sun is coming back out again). The storm is now dying on the same spot from whence it was born.

It looks like the result of sea breezes all piled up towards a central point (convergence) since the general wind flow was virtually slack, surface solar heating then did the rest.

Indeedy Ian, I drove through that monster cell at 16.20hrs on the M20 between Ashford and Maidstone. Torrential rain, partially melted hail and one ot two lightning strikes were observed. Car thermometer fell from 17.5c at Maidstone to just 11.0c in the core of the thundery shower. 

The store doesn't have lightning conductor? 

It's Morrisons - probably has a cheap imitation one, imported from the Far East