poseidon

Storms around here picked up very rapidly, but seem to have suddenly died.

Getting lightning flashes every 10 secs now, but not sure of the direction.

The 6z Arome implies an overnight MCS for Sussex/London/EA. However, I've lost count of how many times this kind of scenario morphs into a Kent clipper in the past few years. Looks a bit knife-edge.

Very fast intensification - torrential rain and wind.

First bit of thunder now.

Some very dark convective clouds forming around here now. Things kicking off by the looks.

A couple of pics from earlier today... Prominent inflow feature [presumably] on an active cell near Chelmsford, Essex... Another CB, moving East...

Gone very dark here. Looks like squall line inbound.

Untitled video - Made with Clipchamp (1).mp4 Caught this brief video this afternoon in Cambridgeshire. Unfortunately, the best motion was before I could stop the car and film, as it passed right in front. The video is also very poor contrast, so I've attempted to increase it and speed up slightly to highlight the motion, but not very successfully. Best to play it on full screen mode and look at the central section. Anyway, this area held it's shape for 400yds or so with some decent rotation and scud ingestion. Immediately, after passing over, it was followed by a heavy hail storm of marble-sized hail which sounded like it was going to come through the windscreen, and then torrential rain. Plenty of lightning around also.

Does the shape of this central feature signify some rotation or just an odd shaped heavy rain area? That was the feature that I drove through earlier, with significant winds.

We hit the main storm line at Bishop's Stortford on the M11. Driving East on the A120, the rain was totally crazy, with visibility down to a few yards and the road flooded. Lightning was flashing all around. Then the wind hit, pushing the car sideways, trees bent right over and leaves swirling all over the road. Has to rank as one of my worst driving experiences and also possibly one of the most violent storms I've seen in the UK. We had some doubts about making it back. Luckily it eased as we neared home.

First proper heavy storms of the year here. Several hours of loud thunder and very frequent lightning. But, I have to say the best bit has been the torrential rain - finally the drought has been broken.

Thunderstorm warnings issued by Met Office for tonight.... UK weather warnings WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK Met Office UK weather warnings for rain, snow, wind, fog and ice. Choose your location to keep up to date with local weather warnings.

Quite agree. But by this stage I would have expected one or more night-time plume thunderstorms, especially in July. We didn't get any here.