Why so little Thunder in the West

Storm 10

As the title says why do we get so little thunder in the West, we had loads of heavy hail showers yesterday, anvil clouds but no action, cant remember the last time I heard thunder here. Is it due to the heat inland or what??????

Harps

The clouds are only forming along the north and west coasts all week, guessing they're not building up a big enough charge until they're further inland. We need a southerly or south westerly for anything decent around here, Galway might do all right from a north easterly which we're due next week

sunbabe08

could ask the same question about the south, in particular cork :mad:

traecy1

At this time of year, an unstable easterly is more likely to give thunder in the west. I remember April 2008 being quite similar to this April. In May 2008 we had a fairly prolonged spell of easterlies that brought quite a bit of thunder to the west.

Deep Easterly

Back in the days when we used to get the odd storm here in the west:



All becoming just a hazy memory now. No thunder here anymore

Harps

I was in Portugal that week, remember hearing about all the thunder all week when we got back. Looks like that was a great day around here as well :rolleyes:

The 9th of May last year is the only time I've heard thunder in the past 18 months apart from two distant rumbles back in early December

Pangea

Now now it hasn't been too bad for us westies
13th December last.

Harps wrote: »

This image definitely deserves to be archived in the thread, don't think I've ever seen so many strikes over the country!

Deep Easterly

Pangea wrote: »

Now now it hasn't been too bad for us westies
13th December last.

Not too bad for the coast for sure with Donegal seemingly doing quite well over the last few months. I live well inland though but even still, I'd be almost sure to get at least a couple of storms during the winter months but not so over the last 3 winters. I think this is down to the shear lack of active squall lines and potent showery troughs over the last few winters. Even winter 2011- 2012, despite being wholly zonal, did not even attempt to throw any active weather systems this way. I won't even begin to talk about the summer.

Something isn't right..

dloob

It seems like we used to get a decent bit, I remember some stormy summers in Galway but it's been quiet in recent years.

I guess if we have an unstable westerly flow the clouds haven't the time to build up until they reach the midlands.
Could be some with the coming unstable easterly's next week.

planetX

I wondered the same thing. We had some massive, vicious looking anvil clouds yesterday, and not a rumble of thunder... just torrential rain:mad:

Tindie

I don't like thunder at all, i can not get over the thunder storm I saw last year, i never saw anything like that, lighting was every 30 seconds or something. it went on for 30min and it felt much longer.

I hate thunder storms because I hate seeing my dog get scared! but it he loves barking at downpours lol.

MrFrisp

sunbabe08 wrote: »

could ask the same question about the south, in particular cork :mad:

Agreed....Nothing but sunshine today...Dammit...:(






.

Deep Easterly

Satellite image from April 2008, just to show how dependent we are in the west on winds from an easterly component when it comes to seeing any half decent shower development:




fax analysis chart for same day (29th April)



As is becoming blatantly apparent at this stage, westerlies are tripe for thunder in the west at this time of year. And no relent from them for the foreseeable it would seem.

Storm 10

Thanks everyone for the replies hopefully we might get lucky one of the days