2010 has had and is supposedly due some of the coolest weather to hit the UK in decades. The freezing winter which had us in its grip for months saw temperatures plummit to -20°C, also bringing record amounts of snowfall in years to most places along with abit of thundersnow!
Above are two of my favourite images I took during the extreme winter. Although they dont exactly show the severity of the snow, they are beautiful winter scenes.
Since the winter, we have experienced quite a dry year with plenty of sunny days and over the past 8 weeks these have been hot hot hot. Also the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted and the jet stream and Northerly winds helped bring the ash to the UK and Europe which disrupted the aviation industry quite badly but these ash clouds made for some beautiful sunsets. There was even the twin waterspouts off the coast of Ireland and the twin funnel clouds which appeared to be west of Ballynure, and North west of Ballyclare in Ireland. Not forgetting the funnel clouds I saw earlier in the year and the large rotating cell which passed a few weeks back, there has also been a multi vortex tornadic event in Maghera N.Ireland.
Most recently from the 4 to the 6th june the UK has had some pretty amazing thunderstorms, mainly in the midlands and further south but the night time storm that hit was out of this world. Also during this weekend there was an awesome rotating cell over Lough Neagh captured by Martin Mckenna and Connor Mcdonald. More info at www.nightskyhunter.com
Well the 4th june 2010 was not the most exciting day I have had but it was far from being the worse. I got up and checked the internet and I was a little excited as the GFS and weather forecast was hinting at thunderstorms developing by late afternoon early evening. Sadly though before the storms were going to happen I had to go to the unit were I was stuck helping my dad all day, it was very hot and humid and really wasnt the weather you wanted to be moving big heavy skips about in or welding in for that matter, but sadly that is what we had to do.
During the day I had popped outside a few times just to get abit of fresh air and have a quick view of the sky, things wernt looking to promising by lunch time as the clouds were rolling in blocking the sun from doing its thing. It was really muggy and sticky though so I kept my fingers crossed and headed back inside. A little while later my dad recieved a phone call from my sister telling us to head outside as a wagon had tried driving under a low bridge and had ripped its trailor into bits, so whilst I was out checking this I had to check the sky also. Things were looking a little better as the clouds had started burning away.
The heat had drained the energy from us by mid afternoon so at 16.00 BST my dad said come on its home time. A big smile appeared on my face and I quickly turned the equipment off and grabbed my things ready to get in the car. Another look at the sky and minor convection could be seen taking place to the south. I was now finally getting excited. By the time we had arrived home low level cloud was rolling in blocking my view of the convection I had seen earlier, so I went in, loaded up the laptop and had a quick check to see what the radar and sattellite was showing. The radar was showing dark echoes slowly moving North towards me, in all honesty they looked like they was going to miss me by a mile or so, so I decided to go for a shower.
Whilst I was in the shower the bathroom kept getting darker, then the rain started, I quickly got cleaned up and got a towel and had a look out of the bedroom window, I was looking at a really dark base and a dark rain curtain quickly moving towards me, I quickly got dry and threw some clothes on and grabbed the camera, ran downstairs but I was to late to capture the heavy rain curtain. My dad noticed one flash of lightning out to the west, but as I was on the eastern side of the house getting images of the cell so I didnt see it, but I did hear the rumble which was quite distant.
Above is the base of the passing Cb
I know the above images aren't the best but they do show how dark this cell was, it did produce alot of rain in a short space of time.
The forecast is for more thunderstorms over the next few days so hopefully more photo ops shortly.
As I type this a friend has just been round telling me of a funnel cloud possibly a tornado abut a mile away from my house. The sky is currently very black with whales mouth. I am currently looking into the situation and awaiting photos. I wll keep you updated.
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