Had an intense storm early this morning, with frequent lightning especially towards the Sea, plus occasional close bangs.

 

Those storms down over France and the Channel moving NNE are elevated storms, so they are not so reliant on surface conditions as surfaced-based storms would be, hence they should not get their legs cut off by their passage over water. In fact there are signs of fresh cells forming to the east of the cluster of cells currently crossing the Channel.

Yes indeed, these are typical medium level storms or altocumulonimbus, where clouds base may exceed 3000 metres above sea level. They feed on warm moist lower troposphere irrespective of surface temperature and will travel over cool or even cold surface. In Lowestoft on 19 June and 27 July 2013, and on 25 April 2014, there were thunderstorms out over the North Sea despite extensive sea fog.

Sounds like a few down in SE got a good show last night!
Meanwhile, today's surface-based action is less certain but likely to be severe if it does kick off. Updated MetO warning out now:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings 

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Sod all here last night so the storm drought continues for now.

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Last night in my area I reckon I had the most spectacular thunderstorms since 1993.

Lightning every  second or more for over an hour and then about 45 minutes of rain of tropical intensity.

Incredible.

 

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We had a couple of minutes of heavy rain and a couple of quiet rumbles of thunder, all around though was having a pretty good show I would imagine as lightning was non stop for some hours. Again like the storms earlier in the year they got close, split and went either side of my location.

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Just lost the brightness here now, so if there's no heat from the sun there will be no fun, well here anyway.

Between 1am and 2am, we had very intense lightning with flashing every few seconds and it was during this period that most of the 18mm of rain fell.
Haven't had such an intense storm here for quite some time.

Still quite humid here with temps currently 20.7C and overcast

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Quite a few good videos online now of some of last night's lightning.

Seem to have been two batches.

The first tracking north-north east on a line from Hampshire up towards Lincolnshire during the first part of the night seemed pretty good and looks like it gave people about 45 minutes of fun en-route. Nothing to be sniffed at!

The second batch was the truly spectacular one it seems. At it's best along the South coast stretching from Hampshire though to Beachy Head from about midnight - it gave about 2 to 3 hours of truly spectacular lightning. Cloud crawlers, ground striking bolts and at its peak near continuous CC lightning. Fragmented a bit as it headed north but it seems like Sussex, Surrey, Kent and up into London all got a lively night. Bit of a London bias on photography online - unsurprising given number of observers, but the videos of lightning approaching Brighton beach sums up the pure spectacle best.

11,000 UK lightning strikes counted since midnight according to one site.

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An average summer storm shortly after midnight - useful rain for the garden but most of the thunder and lightning a few miles off to the south east and behind clouds so went back to sleep

Went back to sleep and missed a half decent summer storm. 😆

We had just over two hours of audible thunder, and more then 3 hours of decent lightning. The storms moved in off the sea and it really kicked off after 12:30.

By 1am they were all around me S,E,W,N, and directly over head! At one point there were roughly 40-50 flashes a minute or so.

I've got sunshine here and it's feeling very humid at the moment. If that doesn't give us a decent chance for a thunderstorm this evening, then I don't know what will.

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Last nights storms in Southampton were superb, the best I've seen in a long while. At its peak the lightning occured every second. Unfortunately I couldn't get any good pictures because my room faces to the South and the vast majority of the lightning was just to the east and west of me making a good picture difficult. It eventually picked up overhead though.

I can imagine there must have been some very big rainfall totals and potential flooding in the New Forest.

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Sod all here last night so the storm drought continues for now.

Yes Duane for some reason storms that appear to be heading our way suddenly veer off to the east as has happened several times this summer.

 

Storms starting to fire in N. Wales.

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Lots of cloud around still, which will no doubt put paid to our storm chances.

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Yes that cloud over Mids and southern parts of N. England looks like its inhibiting things getting going down there.
Meanwhile the storms around Rhyl are intensifying their strike rate.

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Sky completely covered with featureless overcast now. I think that's our storm potential gone now.

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Yes that cloud over Mids and southern parts of N. England looks like its inhibiting things getting going down there.
Meanwhile the storms around Rhyl are intensifying their strike rate.

Overcast here and 22.4 C @ 75% RH - feels very humid as the winds have dropped to a light SSE - hopes fading here as that wind creeps around to a more southerly direction. A notable convergence zone near Rhyl - ESE winds on one side and WNW'lys on the other! 

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