Thunderstorm/convective discussion: Spring 2010

Deep Easterly

Well, we had a couple of rumbles of thunder around the country today, so I think it would be handy to have a thunderstorm report thread as we are now entering the time of year where convective activity becomes more marked across the country.

At this time of year, increasing surface heating can trigger some heavy showers with possible rumbles at times esp as upper temps can still be quite cool due to the winter lag.

A general rule of thumb is to look out for would be a slack, unstable westerly sourced flow which tends to work more favourable for the eastern side of Ireland with regards thunder, while an unstable, slack flow from the variable east would be be better favoured for the western half, ala April/May 2008.

Admittedly, there is not much on the models to favour thunder potential over the next few days although who knows what would happen if this slack trough was to settle over Ireland later in the week as forecast by the ECMWF 12z tonight:


Anyways, enjoy any storms you may see and please let us know about them here!!!

paulhac

Cheers D.E. for that info. It seems like an eternity since last summer's Dublin storm , here's to a few more this year without the flooding though!:)

muckish

Thunder & lightning in Letterkenny at 4.30am Monday morning accompanied by a heavy hail shower. Lasted about 10 minutes.

wild handlin

Excellent thread Deep Easterly, fair play!!

Lets hope this season will spark off some good beefy storms in the West and North!!

Welsh Wizard

I remembering having lighting show here and checking a website that refreshed every 60 secs and seeing if the little red dot was above me area..
Can't remember what website is was.. Lap top went bag along with all my bookmarks..:(

I am petrified of the storm, but love the lightning.. but scared of it hitting me...
The thunder is the best bass (dont think thats right) but the power of the sound is ear popping..

Lightning stuck my back garden in Wales.. sadly i was holding a bowl of soup at the time...
F.k Me... Loudest bang I've ever heard in my life... I couldn't mov for what seemed like 30 seconds..
Have also seen lightning make contact to the ground... would love to capture a photo of it..

Bring on the storms...

nacho libre

paddy1 if it ever takes your fancy, you should book a space flight to saturn as they have the mother of all thunderstorms on that planet. just something to consider:D

Su Campu

ESTOFEX have a nice little thunderstorm area slap bang over Ireland for tomorrow afternoon!

Forecast here

Danno

Welsh Wizard wrote: »

I remembering having lighting show here and checking a website that refreshed every 60 secs and seeing if the little red dot was above me area..
Can't remember what website is was.. Lap top went bag along with all my bookmarks..:(

The Irish ones...

http://www.live.laoisweather.com/lightning/
http://corklightning.com/
http://sproule.co.uk/weather/svlightning.html
http://www.irlweather.com/wxStormVue.php

Enjoy.

Deep Easterly

Welsh Wizard wrote: »

I remembering having lighting show here and checking a website that refreshed every 60 secs and seeing if the little red dot was above me area..

The 2 most reliable sites for spotting and updating sferics (IMO)

http://www.meteox.nl/h.aspx?r=&jaar=-3&soort=satradar

http://andvari.vedur.is/athuganir/eldingar/ (Uses the UK Met Office data)

Welsh Wizard wrote: »

Bring on the storms...

I hear ya brother.

Su Campu

A nice Valentia sounding this morning, with good boundary layer mositure and slight mid/upper level cooling overnight. When the surface temperature hits around 12-13°C later, deep convection will get going, with cloutops reaching around 24,000ft. With high precipitabe water levels, along with slack steering winds, heavy rain and hail showers will be slow moving, leading to possible localised flooding in places. Where the upper cirrus shield remains, however, convection will be limited. So areas looking most prone to showers at the moment are in the midlands and west of the country.

Deep Easterly

Very strange change in wind here over the last 15mins. A couple of light looking showers a few miles away but of note is has gone from calm to a sudden increase to 11mph mean wind speed in less than 10 mins. Wind gusts are reaching up to 25mph. Direction is non definite, alternating between NW and E with each gust. Very odd. But apart from that, nothing of note in the skies.

Deep Easterly

Some Hi Res models are currently indicating that an intense band of showers may move across the country tomorrow afternoon as a slack trough develops on the back of the cold front, which may intensify as they push eastwards:





May well come to nothing could be one to watch.

weisses

Good thread love it ...but Ireland and thunderstorms (the real ones) neehhh

a few rumbles and the odd lightning strike

I think its wishful thinking :cool:

Keep it alive though I will keep following it

Rougies

weisses wrote: »

Good thread love it ...but Ireland and thunderstorms (the real ones) neehhh

a few rumbles and the odd lightning strike

I think its wishful thinking :cool:

Keep it alive though I will keep following it

Tell that to these guys ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAjmPlnGaAY


I really enjoyed that storm.

Deep Easterly

We get the very occasional rumble in Galway too:

Although I do admit, by world standards, storms here at home are pretty languid.

But we'll scrape though!

IvySlayer

I love a good thunderstorm. I was in Florida, they were epic. They out purs to shame. Even though we went to Disneyworld/Universial Studios the lightning shows were the highlight of my holiday.

Su Campu

ESTOFEX have a chance of thunderstorms for the western half of the country today...

Su Campu

As DE pointed out yesterday, there's some really nice convection getting going this afternoon in the midlands and west, with the potential for some lightning in the next hour. Valentia 12Z sounding, which is slightly more stable than conditions further north, is still showing good potential. The surface-based/mixed layer convective temperatures are around 10/12°C, meaning we need around 10°C for convection to get going, and around 12°C for really deep convection and probably lightning. But conditions further north are more favourable than Valentia, therefore lower temperatures are needed. 12Z enhanced IR imagery shows cloudtops generally around -30-35°C, but with some isolated regions of -45°C, which bodes well for us.

We should see the trough of showers move further east and intensify over the next couple of hours, bringing possible flash flooding in places and a risk of lightning.

DOCARCH

Bit of activity showing up now in the south midlands/north Tipp area. http://andvari.vedur.is/athuganir/eldingar/

Radar looks nice!

Trogdor

Looks like there could be some thundery activity tomorrow, or at least potential around for it. Haven't seen decent amounts of CAPE over the country in a good while

Graces7

weisses wrote: »

Good thread love it ...but Ireland and thunderstorms (the real ones) neehhh

a few rumbles and the odd lightning strike

I think its wishful thinking :cool:

Keep it alive though I will keep following it

Kilkenny Cathedral hit during mass a short while ago,,,:rolleyes:

and a three day thunder event last July...

glossy

just out and about in the garden, looks like something is building (trying) into a thunder shower ,, wishing it will be a mega storm.

Danno

IvySlayer wrote: »

...They out purs to shame...

Deep Easterly wrote: »

...storms here at home are pretty languid.

July, 25th, 1985. Nothing I have seen since comes close, even a severe storm in Tarragona, Spain on August 22nd 2008 failed to beat it.

Su Campu

Danno wrote: »

July, 25th, 1985. Nothing I have seen since comes close, even a severe storm in Tarragona, Spain on August 22nd 2008 failed to beat it.

Exactly, I will never forget that night. That's what got me interested in the weather! Oh to have a few more nights like that, though without the damage (our circuitry got fried - one flash and the clock radio went bang out of the wall!)

Deep Easterly

Here is where yr.no thinks the heaviest showers will occur tomorrow:



East Munster, Much of Leinster and east Ulster seem to have the highest risk of some sharp showers tomorrow with the odd flash and bang. Will be interesting to watch these showers develop tomorrow.

me8989

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Here is where yr.no thinks the heaviest showers will occur tomorrow:



East Munster, Much of Leinster and east Ulster seem to have the highest risk of some sharp showers tomorrow with the odd flash and bang. Will be interesting to watch these showers develop tomorrow.

Oh god, don't say it....

I'm terrified of thunderstorms.

Danno

Su Campu wrote: »

Exactly, I will never forget that night. That's what got me interested in the weather! Oh to have a few more nights like that...

Same here Su, in a way it is an event for us as notable as Winter 63/Summer 76 is for older folk... it's our event that we lived through and can recall vividly. Gosh, I'm starting to feel ould now! Pipe and slippers at the ready! :eek:

Graces7

me8989 wrote: »

Oh god, don't say it....

I'm terrified of thunderstorms.

Well, our collie is quite calm; she can tell when thunder is miles away. I have the piriton on hand ready;).

Not sure of the date, but in the mid 90s, we had a massive electrical storm on the island.

It sounded like the crack of doom, and the smell..A huge thunderbolt smashed a telegraph pole to pieces

Never heard the like before or since.

Cattle that were chained got shocked and broke the chains; phones were flying out of walls.

Very oppressive up here this morning. Will not be surpised at thunder.

Redsunset

In the wake of the cold front, diurnal heating and upper level cooling will lead to some 400 - 800 J/kg SBCAPE over the British Isles. Less than 10 m/s deep layer shear should be in place which is not favourable for organised storms. A few briefly organised multicells may produce small hail and gusty winds. Overall lightning frequency should be rather low.

weisses

redsunset wrote: »

In the wake of the cold front, diurnal heating and upper level cooling will lead to some 400 - 800 J/kg SBCAPE over the British Isles. Less than 10 m/s deep layer shear should be in place which is not favourable for organised storms. A few briefly organised multicells may produce small hail and gusty winds. Overall lightning frequency should be rather low.

Wake me up when it hits 5000 joules :P

owenc

weisses wrote: »

Wake me up when it hits 5000 joules :P

Yea and one of them showers just hit nearby station lowering temp.. Now I won't hit 20cc hate these **** showers! In Florida it was 32c at 8am vand by lunchtime it was 18c we were stuck with jumpers all day!

Trogdor

owenc wrote: »

Yea and one of them showers just hit nearby station lowering temp.. Now I won't hit 20cc hate these **** showers! In Florida it was 32c at 8am vand by lunchtime it was 18c we were stuck with jumpers all day!

Do you not love a good storm owen no? 16.8C here with some bubbly cumulus around, have the camera going on timelapse:)

nilhg

Thunder and Lightning to my south, coming closer to me as I type, between Rathangan and Monasterevin, heavy rain too, drove me in out of the garden, with only half the missus list completed.

owenc

trogdor wrote: »

Do you not love a good storm owen no? 16.8C here with some bubbly cumulus around, have the camera going on timelapse:)

Not when it leaves a mass of cloud which is reluctant to clear, and keeps the temperature down.. i am very angry as i am stuck with 15c on what couldv'e been a 20c day.:mad: The showers wont be too strong at this time of the year either the one i had was just like drizzle complete waste of time.

Su Campu

nilhg wrote: »

Thunder and Lightning to my south, coming closer to me as I type, between Rathangan and Monasterevin, heavy rain too, drove me in out of the garden, with only half the missus list completed.

Heading my way now. Showing up nicely on sferic maps

Trogdor

Skies starting to look very threatening here now

djhaxman

Lightning here in Maynooth just now. House alarms going off.

ninebeanrows

Big squall of showers strengthening on route to the greater Dublin region, some good radar echoes and sferics :D

Thunderstorm here in south wicklow at the moment

Min

About two hours ago there was a very heavy shower here rain and hail mix, thundery in nature, no thunder or lightning but the satellite signal went during it.

storm is easing out to sea to the south now.
Fair few bangs out of her.

Gosh is it summer again-phew!

Trogdor

Thunder heard here, out West somewhere over the mountains. Hopefully approaching:)

maquiladora

Lightning and hail just outside Waterford about 30 mins ago.

Su Campu

Real humdinger approaching from the west now, a few rumbles, nice visible gustfront, now heavy precip shield, maynooth getting drenched

dream brother

Some thunder around Navan right now, seems to have came and went within minutes!!

Deep Easterly

Nothing in Galway City all day. Back home now and becoming increasingly convective all of a sudden. Might scrape an evening shower if I'm lucky.

Hal1

Su Campu wrote: »

Real humdinger approaching from the west now, a few rumbles, nice visible gustfront, now heavy precip shield, maynooth getting drenched

Did it look like this? that's not my pic btw, credit to T9 from the IWN .

Trogdor

Timelapse of most of the day here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT7yoc32w3I&
Sorry for the skips in it..i had it set to autofocus before shooting by mistake and whenever it couldn't focus it dropped a frame:mad:

Deep Easterly

trogdor wrote: »

Timelapse of most of the day here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT7yoc32w3I&
Sorry for the skips in it..i had it set to autofocus before shooting by mistake and whenever it couldn't focus it dropped a frame:mad:

Don't worry about it Peter, it still a fantastic timelapse!

snow ghost

Trogdor,

That is absolutley brilliant! Thanks a million for that!

Su Campu

Hal1 wrote: »

Did it look like this? that's not my pic btw, credit to T9 from the IWN .

That looks like the one alright. I took a lot of photos of it but none came out as well as that one!