Thunderstorm/Convective Watch: Summer 2010

thetonynator

CJWRC94 wrote: »

Oh god no!

Personnaly i cant wait for all the rain on tuesday and wednesday , thursday looks good too. (oh , the excitement might get to me!)

10c , hardly! Sure its the sunniest place in ireland!:P

*waits for the "no actaullly we are the sunniest place on the island because......."* lol

I think he means SE england . . .

pauldry

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Just 14.5mm here yesterday! We just got showers though rather than any prolonged rain. Month total on 60.2mm. July 61-90 avearge total is 63.8mm!!


Looks like Mayo was the place to be yesterday though with Belmullet, Claremorris and Knock all getting healthy daily amounts. They have gone from being the driest stations in June to being the wettest in July so far!




Nope, not nearly enough!

49mm of rain Sat/Sun so far here. My original figures of 89mm were off for the month. Rain Gauge has me perplexed at present coz I dont hv me maths head on... think 78mm is what wev had so far in July but in the last 5 or 6 years all our Julys have been pretty wet or thundery .

John Eagleton said the "down the tubes" phrase after the 6 news! Eek and hes the most positive of the Met people. Gerry Murphy would probably have said "we can expect" rain for July August and most of September too. Jean Byrne would just have said is it cold yet? so I can put something sexy on!!!

owenc

CJWRC94 wrote: »

Oh god no!

Personnaly i cant wait for all the rain on tuesday and wednesday , thursday looks good too. (oh , the excitement might get to me!)

10c , hardly! Sure its the sunniest place in ireland!:P

*waits for the "no actaullly we are the sunniest place on the island because......."* lol

I'm talking about the south east in england not south east ireland when i say south east i mean the one in england if i ment the one in ireland i would say south east ireland.

ian_m

Looks very thundery around Dublin at the moment. No sign of anything on the horizon?

thetonynator

owenc wrote: »

I'm talking about the south east in england not south east ireland when i say south east i mean the one in england if i ment the one in ireland i would say south east ireland.

In fairness, you cant blame people for getting mixed up, it is boards.ie after all!!!

owenc

I had a torrential shower like 30 mins ago but there was no thunder with it, i think its too cold for thunder even if its bucketing down as fast as hell!

ragg

ian_m wrote: »

Looks very thundery around Dublin at the moment. No sign of anything on the horizon?

Really loud & long rolls of thunder in North county Dublin - ages between each one, maybe 10 mins...

My poor dog is going terrified

drk and grey here in Lucan. Id love to see some thunder and lightning.
Any chance of thunder/ lightning for West Dublin??

Conor108

Yeah flashes of lightning twice just there in north county dublin

ian_m

That must have been what I was looking at. I didn't see any lightning though.

Definitely looks weird out at the moment...

ragg

It's pitch black out now - whats the likely hood of a good old fashioned thunderstorm tonight??

Su Campu

ragg wrote: »

Really loud & long rolls of thunder in North county Dublin - ages between each one, maybe 10 mins...

My poor dog is going terrified

I had a nice view of that shower coasting out around Rush-Skerries as I was landing just before 10pm. I had a good look out for lightning but couldn't see any, but it did look a potent one alright.

Speaking of potent, there were some nice thunderstorms in southeastern France on the way up, some really vigourous updrafts visible. Seeing these things from the air really gives you an appreciation of the forces involved!

Su Campu

There's some nice convection just off the Kerry/Cork coast tonight which could be of interest to folks in those areas later as it moves ENE-wards. Plenty of lift being provided by PVA from a deepening upper trough and low level warm air advection, and cloud top temperatures are below -40°C. There are no sferics showing up at the moment but as the upper trough becomes negatively tilted during the night it may enhance things further.

Hal1

Storm Forecast Issued: 2010-07-11 23:21:00
Valid: 2010-07-12 00:00:00 - 2010-07-12 23:59:00

Regions Affected
(SE England, East Anglia and Northern Ireland are included in the WATCH)

Synopsis

Low pressure "Mae" moving northeastwards away from the United Kingdom, west of Scandinavia, and Low pressure "Norina" approaching the southwest of the country will dominate the weather on Monday.

There is a low risk of convective activity associated with a developing wave along the cold front as cyclogenesis occurs over the southeast of England and nearby continent during the early hours in association with the destabilisation of the warm and humid airmass present there. The risk of thunder/lightning decreases significantly by dawn, but pulses of heavy rain may give localised flooding given the dry, baked nature of the ground.

Attention then turns to Northern Ireland and Ireland where scattered showers are forecast to develop as the winds fall slack. There is a low risk of thunder and/or lightning, with cloud heights limiting this chance, thus any lightning is likely to be quite isolated.

Deep Easterly

Another slack area of low pressue is expected to move in over us during Wednesday so hopefully this will beef up the chances of thunder too. The rain tomorrow looks to be showery in nature too so maybe a small chance.

Even one rumble will do at this stage

CJWRC94

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Even one rumble will do at this stage

+1!

WolfeIRE

Holland hammered with lightning today. incredible concentration of strikes

http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&subpage_3=3

wonder was that rocks being pelted at at Holland plane carrying team home

Deep Easterly

WolfeIRE wrote: »

Holland hammered with lightning today. incredible concentration of strikes

http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&subpage_3=3

wonder was that rocks being pelted at at Holland plane carrying team home

Haven't a clue who won the world cup but did that german Octopus thing predict the winner?

WolfeIRE

yes. got 8 out of 8 correct. FG have just appointed him as FG spokeserson on finance. his job is to identify bad loans from a large jar that are capable of providing a return to tax payer. and no michael noonan is not the octopus.

Deep Easterly

Interesting wind directions forecast on met's HIRLAM:



nearly all barbs pointing towards the belly button of Ireland. Winds still a solid, if near calm, east here though at the moment.

darkman2

Looks like a very disturbed period from Tomorrow afternoon till Thursday.


Tomorrow it looks like the central portion of the country having some very heavy rain or showers with the possibility of thunderstorms.




Then on Wednesday it looks like the West and Southwest having very heavy rain and intense showers - with heavy showers elsewhere aswell but particularly so in those areas




And then on Thursday more heavy rain




A good chance of thunderstorms throughout

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3011.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn6011.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn7811.png


Looks like getting very wet!


Looks interesting!

Deep Easterly

No thunder but has become thundery looking here. 100% cloud cover with is taking on a dark purple look to the west and south west. Not even a 1mph gust! A very eerie looking evenng.

CJWRC94

Apparently there is a god!

http://www.netweather.tv/gfsimages/gfs.20100712/12/75/ukcapeli.png

Hal1

That is todays chart and there are no signs of anything kicking off here.

Su Campu

Hal1 wrote: »

That is todays chart and there are no signs of anything kicking off here.

No, that's Thursday's chart, from today's run.

I wouldn't take that CAPE chart on its own and go mad about Thursday. Very slack conditions both at low and upper levels means a lot is going to hinge on how much residual cloud is left over from tomorrow and Wednesday, as this will decide how much surface heating will be there to trigger convection. With virtually no upper dynamic support, it will be this heating that will dictate things. If this heating can't take place due to residual cloud then we could be looking at another pretty benign day.

If, on the other hand, we get decent insolation, then we should get some fairly widespread showers developing countrywide, which may could give an isolated rumble or two, and decent falls of rain due to their slow movement. But with no deep layer shear present to seperate updraft from raincore, this activity will be very short lived, and things will become quiet again around teatime.

So let's hope for a clear morning Thursday, or indeed Wednesday, as it will be a similar day, though upper levels will not be quite as cold as Thursday.

M.T. Cranium

I have updated the Boards forecast to reflect a high risk of thunderstorm development on Wednesday and Thursday, with hail becoming a possibility as the freezing levels drop to a level that can interact with fairly modest shower clouds over large parts of Ireland. Any stronger convection would likely produce severe hail and wind gusts as well as frequent lightning in this set-up. Looking at the models (all are fairly similar for this short-range time scale) the most salient feature is the deep upper level low that drifts almost right over Ireland late Wednesday and takes a northerly track by Thursday. It comes close to being a "stacked" low from 500 mbs to surface, and in July or August with these set-ups anywhere on land in our hemisphere (same in southern Australia in Jan-Feb), the hail potential is predictably high, and the set-up to watch for would be slow-moving linear bands that are either just to the east or west of the closed low centre. These can sometimes develop very heavy hail falls, for example in Melbourne a few years ago, as well as in Edmonton Alberta, we saw some reports of 1-2 ft hail drifts from slow-moving lines of these storms in very cool (for midsummer) air masses with temps near 10-12 C. Now it won't be that bad for Ireland in this case but I'm expecting that it might produce some significant hail.

Tracking a somewhat similar developing system across western Canada today and severe storms have developed just ahead of the closed low. With the more dynamic temperature regime there are also tornadoes involved in this system, but there again, would not totally rule out tornadic development for mid-week in Ireland, although of marginal intensity.

Su Campu

Just for my own education MT, as I seem to have underestimated things for Thursday, what will be the trigger for such deep convection? With an almost verticaly stacked low, will upper QG forcing not be minimised? I was looking at the 00Z GFS forecast sounding for around the Portlaoise area and it to me looked like a strong cap around 750-600hPa, so despite the steep low-level lapse rates and dry mid-level, will the roughly 20m/s 0-6km DLS be enough to overcome that, even with a surface temp/dewpoint of 20/10°C, and CAPE of 80J/kg, as forecast?

I'm not questioning you at all, I'm just trying to learn from your vast experience.



File start time : 10 7 13 0 0
File ending time: 10 7 20 12 0
Chosen date in meteorological file: 10 7 15 15

YR: 2010 MON: 07 DAY: 15 HOUR: 15 AT POSITION: 8.5 144.0 LAT.: 53.00 LON.: 7.50
PRSS: 0.1011E+04
MSLP: 0.1012E+04
TPP6: 0.0000E+00
UMOF: -0.5329E+00
VMOF: -0.5906E+00
SHTF: 0.1130E+03
DSWF: 0.5240E+03
RH2M: 0.5600E+02
U10M: 0.3430E+01
V10M: 0.3620E+01
T02M: 0.2934E+03
TCLD: 0.7050E+02
SHGT: 0.1791E+02
CAPE: 0.8000E+02
CINH: 0.0000E+00
LISD: 0.2817E+03
LIB4: 0.8938E+01
PBLH: 0.1968E+04

WolfeIRE

am i wrong in saying this is like a summer version of a polar low?

Su Campu

WolfeIRE wrote: »

am i wrong in saying this is like a summer version of a polar low?

Yes, a polar low is very different, much smaller in size, and warm core, not cold core, like this is. It would have many similar properties to a hurricane (except of course for temperature!).

This one is just a normal cold core depression, but with pretty cold upper levels of around -50°C. It's been forming in the far west Atlantic over the last 24hrs due to a sharp jet streak at upper levels.

weisses

WolfeIRE wrote: »

Holland hammered with lightning today. incredible concentration of strikes

http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&subpage_3=3

wonder was that rocks being pelted at at Holland plane carrying team home

Here some footage from my old hometown

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/1037441/0863455f/heftige_storm_in_groningen_7_12_2010_.html

Almost scary .....

Does Ireland get storms like this??