Stormy Weather II

[DracoM]

Cloudless, brisk wind, fantastic walking /cycling weather up here in South Cumbria. Real summer.

[ahinton]

All day so far in western Herefordshire, overcast, ground fairly damp but no rain, temperature 20 yet, only at 09.00 this morning, Tom Sutcliffe, presenting Start the Week on BBC R4 from the Hay Festival, mentioned a heavy downpour (and Hay-on-Wye's barely 25km from here as the crow flies)...

[Cockney Sparrow]

All day so far in western Herefordshire, overcast, ground fairly damp but no rain, temperature 20 yet, only at 09.00 this morning, Tom Sutcliffe, presenting Start the Week on BBC R4 from the Hay Festival, mentioned a heavy downpour (and Hay-on-Wye's barely 25km from here as the crow flies)...

Start the week - recorded yesterday it was said.

[ahinton]

Start the week - recorded yesterday it was said.

Ah, I missed that bit! Even then, the weather in Hay and that around here yesterday was still a matter of quite some contrast.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bit cooler down here at the moment, surprisingly! Apparently convection is already producing big puffy cumulus down over Sussex, so I've slapped Factor 15 and a trendy hat on for a quick 10 mile cycle before the expected storms take off, the way they did over N London yesterday evening: spectacular lightning-illuminated anvil clouds over towards Enfield way as the sun was setting! If any youtube emerges of that I'll post it here.

[Nick Armstrong]

If any youtube emerges of that I'll post it here.

Not taken last night, but the previous evening: pianist Yevgeny Sudbin (who lives in north London) took this excellent footage of the storm in his garden:

(As previously posted elsewhere here, he is an exceptional photographer of natural and astronomic subjects)

[Nick Armstrong]

Extraordinary at the moment - bright blue sky/some white cloud, sunny end to the day..... but constant thunder rumbling all around menacingly. Wonder which way the evening's going to go....

Update: 10 minutes later, torrential rain. Still bright out though!

[Serial_Apologist]

Ah yes! Doh!

No, that's C.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not taken last night, but the previous evening: pianist Yevgeny Sudbin (who lives in north London) took this excellent footage of the storm in his garden:

(As previously posted elsewhere here, he is an exceptional photographer of natural and astronomic subjects)

Phenomenal piece of filmage there, for which thanks Cali! Normally there's the problem, if you don't have an open shutter or whatever modern equivalent, of capturing a flash the moment it happens. On Saturday night all you had to do was point the camera up at any moment of choosing, press the button, and you were unlikely not to register one.

[Serial_Apologist]

Glancing just now at the Blitzordnung live lightning map shows a large organised mass of storms flashing away on the other side of the Channel, and even as I write there are spherics appearing over the Channel and one not far from Guildford, suggesting we may be in for a disturbed night's sleep.

[Nick Armstrong]

Phenomenal piece of filmage there, for which thanks Cali!

Well, rather thank Yevgeny Sudbin - some of his photography is almost up there with his phenomenal Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Scarlatti &c. &c.

Glancing just now at the Blitzordnung live lightning map shows a large organised mass of storms flashing away on the other side of the Channel, and even as I write there are spherics appearing over the Channel and one not far from Guildford, suggesting we may be in for a disturbed night's sleep.

Still looks a bit like that map at the beginning of Dad's Army...!

[BBMmk2]

Great work there Cali, with that film! Wow! Rain today! Where has the summer gone?

[Serial_Apologist]

"Well the weather's a bit disappointing today compared with yesterday". Kate Kinsella this lunchtime on BBC1 London News with the understatment of the century as we languish under one of her "thundery showers" - actually quite a big MSC, covering the whole of London and beyond, and not in any hurry to move away. Two and a half hours of continuous moderate to heavy rain now, some reports now coming of flooding in parts of E London. Most of the lightning has been of the cloud-to-cloud variety, and invisible in shape owing to a thick layer of clag obscuring visibility that'd been covering the sky all morning, so that one only knew of the approach by loud rumblings to the east. Five minutes ago I had my first glimpse ever of an aircraft being hit by lightning, less and half a mile to the north. Normally this will do little damage beyond making a small hole; in the instance the plane, a smallish probably business jet, just continued on its journey north-west. With any luck someone will have captured the moment of impact on camera. Oddly enough, Blitzordnung seems to be registering very few of the actual discharges today, making me wonder if some of the network's sites have been put out of action.

[Serial_Apologist]

Now we're getting multiple flashes, window shaking compound thunder to match, and torrential rain, a real waterfall blotting everything out beyond 300 yards. Travel problems on the cards I fear. This is about as intense as anything I've observed other than on Youtube footage from Sri Lanka. Perhaps we should be shutting down electrical appliances such as computers, TVs. I can't even get out to buy my Radio Times - far too dangerous carrying a brolly in these conditions.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I can't even get out to buy my Radio Times - far too dangerous carrying a brolly in these conditions.

If it's any consolation, S_A, RT might not be on sale until tomorrow because of yesterday's Bank Holiday.