SimonP

Possibly because the Met Office are themselves already mentioning it in their forecasts, therefore as are the BBC.

Going by how GFS has performed this week with regards thunderstorm potential/CAPE, FI seems to be T+24h at the moment!

Here we go - synoptics shown a few times through the video:

I noticed the latest update to the MetO wordy forecast (updated 1508 BST): Headline:Muggy and possibly thundery in the south overnight. Drier elsewhere. This Evening and Tonight:A warm and muggy night across southeast England with an increasing risk of thundery showers. Elsewhere, some clear spells but also some patchy mist and low cloud. The far north of Scotland also seeing some patchy rain at times.

Heh, seems everyone's having issues! They posted this on their FB page yesterday:

Good to see Estofex forecasts have returned! As a side note, it's now UKASF's turn - no forecasts will be issued between now and the 17th May, owing to forecasters chasing in the US and scheduled maintenance/updates to the site.

Thanks Paul. Many thanks Coast, weather09, Gael_Force for the information. Lots of interesting stuff on their Facebook page... I hope they'll keep posting on there when they start issuing forecasts again, particularly real-time stuff!

Hi all, Courtesy of the Estofex Facebook page, I came across this link which collates quite a number of photos and videos of the event: http://centrometeoemiliaromagna.weebly.com/curiositagrave.html Also, thanks weather09 for the superb analysis of the event! I also noticed this from Estofex: "this could be an event, where local, mesoscale conditions significantly altered the pre-convective environment."

Thanks weather09 - sounds like they may have had some sort of hardware issue with the server... The main reason for asking was because I see a tornado was reported today in Italy - would have been nice to have seen their forecast...

Hi all, I noticed the past week or so that no Estofex forecasts have been issued, and so upon checking the website encountered this message a couple of days ago: We regret that until further notice no forecasts are issued due to a technical problem. We are working to resolve it as soon as possible. The ESTOFEX team. Now the site just reveals a 503 message saying they are offline for maintenance. Does anyone have any more information? Cheers, Simon

Quite a day! Seen some amazing structures - there must surely be some good pics and vids out there! Going purely on GFS and its CAPE modelling, could be a couple of days this coming week with potential. Keeping an eye on things...! Also, kudos to Estofex who had a chunk of the UK under a 50% lightning area. No severe warning area, as they mention in their text; warranted due to the lack of DLS etc. Lots of people have been slating their forecasts as they have issued a couple of severe level areas (some level 1s issued earlier this year) for the UK, only for CI to not occur. However, such areas have only been surrounded by a 15% lightning area, and many people seem to overlook this!

If only they had some way of searching the internet, eh? brb, gonna do this now and call it "google" LEWP = line echo wave pattern. Squall line.

haha, yeah! Also caught my eye was the "AMENDED" text at the top of the forecast, never seen that before... Wonder if they already had a forecast drafted out... Interesting.

ESTOFEX forecast is out - level 1: http://www.estofex.org/cgi-bin/polygon/showforecast.cgi?text=yes&fcstfile=2012081606_201208150941_2_stormforecast.xml

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