Today's thunderstorm potential

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Plenty of potential for some rather juicy thunderstorms today. As always, just because they are forecast, it doesn't mean that everyone in an area will get one - its quite possible for one town to be hit badly and the other stay dry.

So we have a low pressure interacting with a trough, to destabilise the atmosphere. High values of CAPE (convective available potential energy) However, the risk is still fairly marginal at present.

I think the strongest risk is to the west of the IOW this afternoon, evening, then developing further north in the west as we go through the night, where storms could become severe. Potential for large hail, frequent lightning and flash flooding. A low potential at present for funnel clouds.

Lol @Mooey89 I'm the sweaty messy one whinging in Copnor

@glittersglitters ditto sweaty messy one whinging in Milton!

North London has to wait till midnight apparently. That's a shame, I could really do with an early night.

Very definite TSs going on. Heavy-ish rain.

I hope all you in Portsmouth and around at least get some rain.

Lol at least you could leg it to the seafront and jump in

Thanks @alcibiades it's gone really dark here but seems to be just creeping inland 😭😭😭

whojam, its possible unfortunately. I'll be crossing my fingers for you.
Central southern storm looks as though it may hit Basingstoke I think.

Huge crack of thunder overhead. Heavy rain.

Really brightened up here but still so muggy, surely that isn't it for us Plymouth folk?

Thunder literally just starting in Basingstoke.

Yep we have rain and thunder just outside basingstoke. No lightening yet though 😞⚡️

As per usual the storm made landfall at Bournemouth and tracked East past Salisbury and on towards Basingstoke.

OYBBK, is there a reason why storms seem to miss where I live? I live on the very edge of a huge glacial valley in the North Dorset area - would the hills help deflect storms away? Apologies if that sounds stupid!

I have storm envy. It's hot and sticky here in Sussex, and I love a good storm.

I'm in South Wales and I'm hoping the massive storms arrive tonight. It's so muggy and thick here.

LadyFlumpalot (fab username ) I've been wondering something similar about living under the Chilterns, storms seem to sort of skirt us and move on...

I take it back, just heard a rumble of thunder. Perhaps we will get a storm after all

LadyFlump, I've never had it confirmed by experts, but my feeling is that the Isle of Wight helps create convergence zones, steering the storms in that direction you've described. It does seem to be a common storm corridor.
I'd love to see an analysis of it.
I think maybe Reading after Basingtoke, seems to be aiming for as many large towns/cities as it can!

It skimmed though hampshire about an hour ago. Cooled down for about 10 minutes but is muggy as hell again now!

Sod all happening here just outside Bath, unfortunately.
Guess I'll have to water the garden again this evening 😐
We can watch the approaching weather split to go either side of the hill, really infuriating because I love a good thunderstorm!

new cells are popping up both east and west of the Basingstoke storm.

I'm between Portsmouth and Southampton!

LadyFlumpalot and mumonashoestring - I know there's the phenomenon of orographic lifting (?) where weather systems get pushed upwards because the ground underneath rises. So it rains on one side but it's dry on the other.

Not so sure about other areas. Though I live in Winchester and I'm convinced that systems tracking north across the Channel get split by the Isle of Wight and so go either side of me. I'm quite possibly wrong about that, though.

West IOW resident here (Hello I love to laugh you must be near me!) . we've had a bit of heavy rain and some rumbles .. still warm and muggy though..

Mooey I grew up in Milton! Moorings way to be precise!

Oooooh are they sister cells? We had one of those on the one storm we've had recently. Distant lightning then all of a sudden a huge crack overhead and pouring rain.