Stormy Weather

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh, dear! After an indifferent humid day with plenty of heavy showers, we now find ourselves beset by a thunderstorm - of all things! We have lived in the Inverness area for twenty-eight years and they are not common up here. I think that I can only remember about half-a-dozen in that time.

Help! I'm frightened!

Well!!!!!

Here that same frontal system appears to have passed through with nothing more than 5 minutes of light rain, because the humidity and temperature (24 C) have both now dropped and it now feels delightfully fresh.

Things should soon be improving where you are, Alcydon, whereas down here it's forecast to be downhill from Wednesday on, right through the weekend.

[DracoM]

Here a sweep of ferocious monsoon-like wind and rain for 20 minutes, then, mirabile visu, gone in a trice.
Plan your walking day round that!

[Serial_Apologist]

Here a sweep of ferocious monsoon-like wind and rain for 20 minutes, then, mirabile visu, gone in a trice.
Plan your walking day round that!

Round the twigs and branches strewn all about the place in the aftermath.

[Nick Armstrong]

Incredible weekend of weather for a jaunt to East Anglia (it seemed to be the best place in the country for sunshine, along with Kent), ending with a sea-front 24 hours at Aldeburgh - fabulous sighting of the Perseid meteor shower from the beach at midnight, an amazing big crescent moon low over the sea at 3am (third "Sea Interlude" anyone?), and then a visit to the Red House yesterday - closed on Mondays () but the gardener said we were welcome to enjoy the garden, which allowed a very pleasant hour or two, including sitting in the shade on the bench overlooking the croquet lawn...




PS: BBM don't worry, there were suitable applications of Adnams' Broadside outside the Sole Bay Brewery in Southwold, naturally...

[Beef Oven!]

Incredible weekend of weather for a jaunt to East Anglia (it seemed to be the best place in the country for sunshine, along with Kent), ending with a sea-front 24 hours at Aldeburgh - fabulous sighting of the Perseid meteor shower from the beach at midnight, an amazing big crescent moon low over the sea at 3am (third "Sea Interlude" anyone?), and then a visit to the Red House yesterday - closed on Mondays () but the gardener said we were welcome to enjoy the garden, which allowed a very pleasant hour or two, including sitting in the shade on the bench overlooking the croquet lawn...




PS: BBM don't worry, there were suitable applications of Adnams' Broadside outside the Sole Bay Brewery in Southwold, naturally...

Great photo!

Would appear that you had a wonderful time of it - but didn't you sleep!?

[Serial_Apologist]

Funnily enough, Cali, I had half-intended taking my bike to the far Essex end of the District Line - Upminster, which is as far as my old grumpy's pass allows - and from there taking to the surprisingly scenic flatlands between the Southend Arterial and the A14, ending up for a pub lunch at picturesque half-timbered Horndon-on-the-Hill. Instead of that - familiar with not wanting to chance a probably overcrowded Sunday Tube - at 11.30 am I started out for the lanes south of West Wickham and west of Biggin Hill - my answer to The Cotswolds - where a surprisingly un-arduous gradual climb to just over 600 feet above sea level takes one to a little hamlet no one seems to have heard of called Fickleshole: really no more than three farmsteads off a typical N Downs back lane and an ordinary-looking pub, The White Bear, replete with a back terrace, tables, umbrellas etc., and a plaster model of a fullsized polar bear out front.

There I talked over half a lager to a delightful young couple who'd previously overtaken me , and who had cycled "not far", i.e. only the 12 miles from Catford! They were looking for somewhere in the country to have as their first home buy - Catford and even Peckham being now beyond their price range - and I had to indicate that Biggin Hill/Warlingham have long been top stock broker country. I felt so sorry for them - felt like offering them my cupboard here for free in return for them acting as audience for my radical political ideas! Seriously, though, how even young educated middle class youngsters such as they will ever be able to afford home ownership in London is beyond me - where are Their Smugnesses, Phil and Kirsty, these days?? certainly not the capital.

From Ficklestone it was back: via Addiscombe, with its pseudo-Tudo frontaged shopping parade, Shirley with its windmill, the late Victorian working class suburban streets and bustling shopping centre of Penge (or Penge, to lend it's name a false French dignitas beloved of its few aspiring gentrifiers) and, by now thoroughly red-faced, up the final gruelling mile-long incline to the summit of Crystal Palace, (how do people arrive up here looking so cool and relaxed??), and the short descent to my abode. About 20 miles in all and it was only 3.30 in the afternoon.

A beautiful, sunny, not-too-hot day, made the mostest of!

[BBMmk2]

What a great place to go, Cali! Ah Adnams, you can't go wrong there. Broadside, of my favourites.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's been quite a bit cooler today here than for some time. Tomorrow looks scary: the predicted charts in my experience are associated with some of the most violent thundery activity that there has been in this country.

[Anna]

Aldeburgh - fabulous sighting of the Perseid meteor shower from the beach at midnight

I'm so glad someone else has been out in the wee small hours spotting meteors! They were very good at 2am this morning, tonight should see them at their peak but, alas, here it's clouded up, a fiery sunset and the calm (not a breath outside, not the slightest tremble of a leaf, it's spookily still) before the expected storm, torrential rain, thunder and lightning it seems for the SW & Wales and Friday looks even worse. However, for those unaffected further North and especially NE Scotland please try and see the Perseids and at 10.30pm the International Space Station will be passing overhead, like a very bright star (but moving!)

Weather has been such a mixed bag, baking one day, cold the next, hardly ever without that wind but the last two have finally borne a semblance of Summer.
Edit: Oops, hadn't seen S_A's - not too scary storms please!!

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm so glad someone else has been out in the wee small hours spotting meteors! They were very good at 2am this morning, tonight should see them at their peak but, alas, here it's clouded up, a fiery sunset and the calm (not a breath outside, not the slightest tremble of a leaf, it's spookily still) before the expected storm, torrential rain, thunder and lightning it seems for the SW & Wales and Friday looks even worse. However, for those unaffected further North and especially NE Scotland please try and see the Perseids and at 10.30pm the International Space Station will be passing overhead, like a very bright star (but moving!)

Weather has been such a mixed bag, baking one day, cold the next, hardly ever without that wind but the last two have finally borne a semblance of Summer.
Edit: Oops, hadn't seen S_A's - not too scary storms please!!

Just checked reports from Paris, and it was 31 degrees C at 9 pm today, Anna!

Here's the nice BBC man's predictions as to how it will develop overnight and for the next two days. Scotland will still be getting the tail end but we should be out of the worst by Friday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/33887071

[Serial_Apologist]

You can follow the course of the storms on this site:

http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

It looks like a raggle-taggle army advancing north up the western side of France at the moment, with multiple strikes off Biarritz. And there's another cluster between Libya and southern Italy - which won't affect us here, but one feels for migrants trying to make it across the Med at that point!

[Anna]

You can follow the course of the storms on this site:

http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

It looks like a raggle-taggle army advancing north up the western side of France at the moment, with multiple strikes off Biarritz.

Thanks S_A, just had a look at that map - awesome! I've got some family sailing from Roscoff to Plymouth first thing in the morning ... rough crossing for them perhaps and a wet last night in their campsite near Quimper?

Still, we could do with the rain! (Always try and find a positive ....)

[Nick Armstrong]

Cheers S_A - was about to hunt for that, ready for tomorrow morning

Poor old Brittany's copping a packet, what?

And yes, perhaps a light breakfast best for your rellies, Anna....

Thanks S_A, just had a look at that map - awesome!

Haven't you used it before Anna? - it's amazing. The last heavy storms, I was up until all hours tracking the direct hits across London!

[Anna]

Haven't you used it before Anna? - it's amazing. The last heavy storms, I was up until all hours tracking the direct hits across London!

I must have missed it (or forgotten about it!) Still hours away until it hits. Anyway, just looked out and the skies have cleared so I'm off hunting Perseids!

[Petrushka]

Superb day here today. This is what we've been missing all summer! And then it's all going pear-shaped again tomorrow