539 replies to this topic

[Jane Louise]

Getting ready for 2011 storm season Will this really be our year? One can hope lol .

[BornFromTheVoid]

Sign me up! Been years now since I've seen a decent storm

[ajpoolshark]

Blimey Jane, this is a bit previous....lol......I should imagine that everyone's a member currently!

[Jane Louise]

BornFromTheVoid, on 11 January 2011 - 21:13 , said:

Sign me up! Been years now since I've seen a decent storm

Welcome to the club. I feel this is going to be a good year for all us storm starved.

ajpoolshark, on 11 January 2011 - 21:14 , said:

Blimey Jane, this is a bit previous....lol......I should imagine that everyone's a member currently!

Lol Can you tell I'm desperate for a storm?

I think a few may have some potential on Friday, probably only a couple rumbles of thunder though! But it's soon going to be Spring :Dand I did get a storm a few years back in March! Lol

[weather09]

Think we're a few months early with this one lol. Not that the UK has a defined "season" for storms but usually starting from as early as late March the strength of the sun is sufficient for decent land-based convection, given better constrast between the surface and upper air temperature profile. That's usually when Polar-Maritime air masses are at their best...creates beautiful cloudscapes with crisp blue skies inbetween showers or storms.

Hopefully this year won't be as quiet as last, when ridging from the Azores region was the largely dominant pattern for a good part of the summer. Really want to see troughing dominate to our W/SW, but not for the jet to "flatten out" and send lows directly over the country; depending on the depth of low pressure moving over the country, the best we could hope for in such a pattern would be those slack flow, convergence-type setups -- good for slow-moving showers and storms, not good for severe convection given slackening upper flows.

[Thundery wintry showers]

weather09, on 11 January 2011 - 21:38 , said:

Hopefully this year won't be as quiet as last, when ridging from the Azores region was the largely dominant pattern for a good part of the summer.

Yes, I don't share the enthusiasm many people have for that Azores ridging pattern- it does depend on what you're after of course, but I usually find that even when those Azores ridging scenarios bring dry sunny weather they often get tedious after a while- and more so when they bring a good deal of cloud to boot.

The troughing to the W/SW sounds like what we had on a regular basis in the Julys of 1994, 1995 and 2006- those were pretty thundery months.

[ElectricSnowStorm]

As we can't forget that SE england had 0.1% storms and no imports, i don't see this same pattern repeating it self..but thats just hope!!

Summer 2006 great that was, just a the drought conditions were getting quite serious until thankfully from mid july the thunderstorms started and remained as at least one thundery outbreak a week, many imports and homegrowns, this continued until end sept/october and stayed very warm! If this year it turns out un-thundery like last yr then stormchase france is on, altho it would be only 1or2 nights and them being level 1+ storm nights!

[Andy Bown]

Jane Louise, on 11 January 2011 - 21:31 , said:

I think a few may have some potential on Friday, probably only a couple rumbles of thunder though!

That's all I heard in the whole of 2009 and 2010 anyway lol !!

[Jane Louise]

Lol Andy, same here.

[Stormyking]

Can I join please? considering theres been no storms yet in 2011
But seriously I can't wait for the spring and summer, bring on them storms and summer plumes I have good feeling about this year

[Coast]

nimbilus, on 12 January 2011 - 02:29 , said:

As we can't forget that SE england had 0.1% storms and no imports, i don't see this same pattern repeating it self..but thats just hope!!

Well at least we got a multiple drop weak tornado and I was able to inspect some minor damage!

[Jane Louise]

Stormyking, on 12 January 2011 - 13:25 , said:

Can I join please? considering theres been no storms yet in 2011
But seriously I can't wait for the spring and summer, bring on them storms and summer plumes I have good feeling about this year

Course you can SK Roll on summer/Spring
As you know, we never get storms in Cheltenham but we maybe lucky lol

[weather09]

Thundery wintry showers, on 11 January 2011 - 23:44 , said:

Yes, I don't share the enthusiasm many people have for that Azores ridging pattern- it does depend on what you're after of course, but I usually find that even when those Azores ridging scenarios bring dry sunny weather they often get tedious after a while- and more so when they bring a good deal of cloud to boot.

The troughing to the W/SW sounds like what we had on a regular basis in the Julys of 1994, 1995 and 2006- those were pretty thundery months.

Yeah, storm enthusiasts will hate the mid-Atlantic or Azores ridge pattern, given that it's the complete opposite to the ideal scenario for a great storm setup, especially as these types of ridging patterns can be rather persistent, making for a prolonged boring spell of weather.

Nice looking synoptic chart here from early July '94:



... is the sort of setup I hope we get to see at least once this year. Nice strong ridge and high pressure well east and north-east of the UK, stalling and disrupting troughs to our west or south-west resulting in a long-draw southerly from the Iberian Peninsula.

Here's hoping...

[Mesoscale]

I will join this year too! I dont suspect that I will be in here the whole year as im off to florida in august for a couple of nights before the cruise!
Last year was really bad storm wise, I had a grand total of 0 storms with only about 3 rumbles of thunder the whole year! 2009 was ok for storms as I got a really big storm at the end of july!

[ElectricSnowStorm]

This year could be an active thundery one, with imports frequently moving out of france up to the north, from late May into summer, thats what i want, need and expect! i can't forget the times standing outside at 1am watching french imports arriving 30miles away to my south with new cells exploding to the east and sw becoming multicelled, taking 2hrs before hearing wardrobes rolling down hills, arriving slowly rumbling on until 5am. .. they were the nights.

[Jane Louise]

Time will tell if this is going to be a good year
From what I gather last year, the storms seemed to be further North! something to do with the jet stream I think!

Seven to eight years ago Cheltenham used to get some really good close storms and they were scary especially when you're camping Lol.
Let's hope the Jet stream can position itself in it's normal position this year and then we can hopefully welcome the storms back again.

Here's hoping and praying Lol

[Stuart]

Yep roll of spring summer hope i get lot more this year before i moved up North

[Thundery wintry showers]

Jane Louise, on 13 January 2011 - 09:23 , said:

Let's hope the Jet stream can position itself in it's normal position this year and then we can hopefully welcome the storms back again.

Here's hoping and praying Lol

Trouble is, that in itself wouldn't welcome the storms back again- the normal position of the jetstream takes low pressure systems to the north of Scotland and by default encourages ridging from the Azores High. The main setups for thundery months involve slack slow moving low pressure in the vicinity of the UK (August 2004 was an extreme case of this) or troughing to the W/SW, relatively high pressure to the east and frequent southerly winds as mentioned a few posts ago.

I remember those instances in late May and late June 2010 when thundery outbreaks developed over parts of Scotland and northern England and the south stayed sunny and dry, but those weren't typical of the "southerly tracking jet" pattern of the last few summers- they had high pressure in charge. Overall it wasn't a thundery summer in the north either, other than the odd thundery "sunshine and showers" setup under slack low pressure those were pretty much all the north had in the summer half-year and July in particular saw tropical maritime air dominate.

[Nick F]

Ideally we need a more amplified pattern in summer, with a northward returning jet across the UK ahead of a trough sat to the W and SW of the UK.

Problem with last year is that that jet was rather flat W to E or aligned NW to SE - which is a pattern prohibitive for good storm set-ups other than weak storms in a Pm flow producing small hail and a few rumbles.

I would just like to re-live my yoof, when the evening BBC forecast sometimes in summer would show a big black blob (MCS) on the satellite image over France headed for the UK for the overnight lightshow spectacular! We seem to be getting winters like my youth now, so maybe we'll get the Spanish Plumes returning too.

[Coast]

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