Had several downpours in the early hours of the morning here delivering not far off 10mm, it seems hard to shake them off!

The next major risk of heavy rain looks to be this coming weekend (no surprise there...!) across the far south and/or southeast. There's some hot air expected over NW Europe which may drift toward the UK, bringing high moisture levels again (hourly precipitable water potentially exceeding 40mm for a time), which brings the threat of some intense rain rates, but the positioning is total guesswork at the moment.

The problem is that a shallow low is likely to develop where the hot air meets cooler air over the UK, but it looks so poorly defined that the models are really struggling to figure out where exactly it will take shape.

What we do see in the latest model guidance is two main pulses of moisture-laden air, one Saturday afternoon and on into the night, the other during Sunday daytime. Some runs have this first batch as far west as Cornwall and heading NE from there, while others have it crossing SE England - pretty much the widest range possible from west to east!

Sunday's could turn up anywhere from the Midlands to N. France by the looks of things. So you never know, we could escape that one.

Just had the second burst of heavy rain so far today, both only lasted a few minutes but got 4.8 mm in total anyway.

I'm getting a bit bored of the rain now, and it's not even Autumn proper.

AROME still staying little or no rain today and the event is now almost here

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/arome/arome-1-10-0.png

but the radar tells a different story.

Looks like Euro4 and MOGREPS correct on this one

A few thunderstorms have developed north of Caen in the English Channel. They could have Kent's name on them. One to watch. 

Looks like you'll be at risk at least until Tuesday  

Indeed, I wouldn't rule out the chance of me getting to experience some thundery-type weather at any point between now and Tuesday.

But for now, I am sitting nicely in a gap between the general rain over Sussex & Surrey and the thundery showers over the French coast that appears to be struggling to make headways towards Kent. Seems that the Folkestone Rain Deflector is being as effective as ever . . .

Just heard a couple of very deep and very distant booms somewhere to the south. 

It's clear both GFS and E4 have problems with the ppn today. The current realtime is not a good match TBH.
That said as far as convective elements are concerned I still expect cells or an MCS to move NNE into the SE later today or overnight.

Quite interesting display of lightning last night as I watched from the hot tub! More convective action tonight methinks

Estofex have a level 1 clipping the far SE tonight. Some serious amounts of rain are possible too. 

Their forecast yesterday verified very well for last night which showed the northern extent of the Level 1 in Mid Channel. Last night we were treated to the light show but not the rain. Tonight the action all looks a lot closer to shore. 

http://www.estofex.org/

Was just going to post about the possible storm threat into the SE this evening and overnight, but see you have done it already Neil.

Steve/Ian, at the ready.

Exciting times ahead Neil..and maybe not just for the far SE 

http://www.estofex.org/

Estofex have updated with a specific mesoscale discussion. By the sounds of things there could be some good outflow resulting in gust fronts as part of this thundery package. 

Eyes down, here we go again. However, it is still on the other side of the Channel and *appears" to be taking a similar track to last night.
 
But the "potential" for storms to affect Kent remains active for the rest of the night anyway so it looks like a case of radar watching and . . . well, just wait for it.

A couple of flickers and a recent deep boom somewhere to the south. 19.7c 

That cell is impressive to my S and SSE with a constant strobe light show occuring. Its high based and probably 20 miles away and is giving deep booms only occasionally. 

Good to see all those years of clubbing have not been wasted. Strobing to the max to my south

Glass of Pinot noir. In hand. In hot tub facing south. Game on! Strobe lightning and distant booms. Meteorological summer 2015 wants to go out in style. That lightning map that was linked a while back appears to have a delay of a few seconds, pretty good still though.