As the day went on the temps got hotter and it felt quite warm in the sunshine. I was at home decorating when a small shower passed by. A look at the sky showed a rather small cell passing which was bringing the shower, but the rest of the sky was rather clear, but the S SE had some decent looking convection. When I had finished decorating I got cleaned up and went to my girlfriends house for some lunch. It was about 15.00BST and my girlfriend said she wanted to clean her car. She went downstairs and started reaching the stuff out whilst I uploaded my Blackpool Airshow Images to facebook when I got a message from a Sean Benneyworth informing me of a thunderstorm he was enjoying in Kettering. I decided to check the GFS to see what values he had when I realised I also had the chance of a storm. I quickly ran to the front of the house to check the sky when I noticed a huge Cb to the E which was going to miss me by a few miles if it stayed on its current track. I informed Zoe straight away that it was going to soon rain and possibly thunder. She could just see white fluffly clouds and thought nothing was going to happen and went out to clean her car. I checked the radar and saw a line of cells moving S, one of which would pass right over our head.
I informed her that within 30 minutes we would be experiencing a thunderstorm and heavy rain but still she didnt believe me. I admired the cell which had great updraught towers shooting up looking like giant cauliflowers. It also had a fuzzy anvil the first time I looked at it but 5-10 minutes later its anvil had formed much better and had become more crisp! Its base looked very dark but the houses across the street were blocking my view of any rain curtains etc. I kept dashing in and out to update people on facebook as to what was happening, but I was concentrating so much on the cell to the E that I hadnt even noticed the cell forming behind me to the NW.
Zoe ran in shouting "I think its thundering", I popped my head out of the window and saw a huge cell approaching, this thing was a daddy, It had a long flanking line to the rear, a huge anvil, pitch black base and it was becoming very active. I turned the laptop off and dashed outside to Zoe. I basically told her we were chasing this thing. The downside was I didnt have my camera on me, it was at home 2 miles away so we had to drive under the storm to get my gear to drive back on ourselves another 3 miles to get to our location which we would be able to watch the cell pass directly over us. Luckily Zoe was just rinsing the last few bubbles off her car so we jumped straight in it and drove to mine, we closed in on the storm and the sky turned from day to night. We was driving directly under the updraught, the motion in the thing was awesome, then I noticed rotation, the whole updraught region was rotating quite rapidly then it started lowering. Striations could be seen on the cell wall, then a wall cloud formed and a funnel lowered from it. You could see a line of inflow being violently drawn into the wall cloud. The funnel formed and it looked amazing. I wish I had my camera on me so I could have gotten some images of this. You would have been impressed.
This is a radar grab of the cell when the major rotation was taking place. Thanks to Shaun Maltby for getting it me
We got to mine and I ran in and grabbed the camera, the sky was looking awesome. Whales mouth was dominating the rear end of the cell as the inflow was making this thing look like a very choppy sea. Within 2 minutes of going through the front door the downdraught made itself known. The rain was immense, the rain drops were huge and falling to the earth at an alarming rate, the winds had picked up and remained almost constant with strong gusts coming every now and then. There was quite alot of lightning coming from this thing so I didnt want to miss anymore of it, so I ran to the car and we got going again.
I drove through the core which I drove just over 2 miles to do so, I was at the front of the cell, another 1/2 a mile on the same road and I was just infront of it. We then had to turn, this meant the cell was able to gain ground on us, fast. Which it did. We finally arrived at our destination buzzing about the lightning strikes we had just seen, the rumbles we had heard and obviously the funnel cloud!
Zoe had been filming the drive through the core and then filmed the cell as it passed over us before the core had a chance to pounce on us again.
Short video clip of us driving through the core
I then took the camera off Zoe and started to film the base of the cell and the rain curtains out to the W. The lightning strike rate had calmed down alot by the time we got here but there was still a few strikes to be seen. If I didnt have to go back and get my camera we would have had some awesome footage to bring back with us.
This was a rain curtain over to the W
The storm soon died off after being up here, but another cell which I mention in this next video was developing to our N.
Long video showing lightning and more of the cell, as well as a developing cell to the N NE
As you hear me mention about the developing cell, this is what it looked like a few minutes after I stopped filming.
Image showing the cell from the video now with an anvil
We remained here for a while checking out both cells and getting hit by strong winds and heavy rain. There was a few lightning strikes and some good rumbles but the cell was moving on. Another line of convection hanging on to the rear of the cell started to go up.
A small tower developing
Since small towers were starting to go up again we decided to stay put due to the unstable environment, we knew there was a chance of seeing something, whether it was going to be another Cb or a heavy downpour something would happen.
I got trigger happy with the camera and started taking images of clouds, rear of the cell, the developing towers, the cell to our N. There was something happening everywhere which was quite exciting.
This was a developing line of towers to the rear of the cell (taken before the image above this)
Then another look N showed the cell looking bigger and better, but it was always going to struggle making it to us as this was atleast 20 miles away.
The cell to the N getting stronger
Then a look behind us to the E and we could see blue sky starting to peak through the breaks in the clouds. Zoe asked if we could go home but my instincts were telling me something was building and whatever it was, it was imminent.
But then a few lowerings side by side formed under the base of a mean looking cloud, they were rotating quite quickly and were dancing with each other. But it was just scud and nothing to get excited about.
Dancing, rotating scud. You can see from the image the rotation in this cell
Although the scud was nothing to get excited about, the cell they were under was. The image shows the rotation quite well, so I stayed gazing at it for a while thinking something would form and drop. But nothing did.
A little while had passed and nothing had happened and we were considering going home, a few more images were taken just to keep me busy.
Side and rear of the main cell
Zoe was getting quite impatient at this point as nothing was happening and she was getting hungry. So I got back in the car and said 1 more minute then we can go.
Then without warning a small funnel formed under the base of one of the rising towers at the rear of the cell
Very poor image of the funnel but by the time I realised it was blurry it was to late
The funnel remained for a few seconds before going back into the cloud base. Since Zoe had seen it she had a slight adrenaline buzz about her and started patrolling the whole base incase more funnels dropped, eventually though the adrenaline wore off and she was bored again so we called it a day.
When I got home I checked the internet to check out the radar and Sferics, and this is what the C-g rate looked like.
Sferics over the UK
Later that night it was on the news about the cells which brought flash flooding to Stockport. This cell was one of them to contribute.
One of the many videos I found on youtube of the flooding
I dont know if you heard but in one of the videos I mentioned taking Zoe for a chinese, well I was true to my word and got her chicken fried rice, with curry sauce, sweet and sour sauce and some chips. What a great end to a great day. Next time I will remember to take my camera though.
Thanks for reading
