Quick update on the potential for tomorrow PM and overnight. Looks like showers likely to get going in the SW in the afternoon, moving NNE and intensifying with thunderstorms likely. Main risk areas look like being E.Wales, Midlands into N. England in the evening, but there's also potential for a separate area of storms coming into SE and EA later on, but this is more dependant on capping issues.

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GFS 12z shows the potential nicely:

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First clouds in a couple of days and they are already hinting at instability..

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Convective Weather's forecast. I usually find them quite accurate with thunderstorms:

http://www.convectiveweather.co.uk/forecast.php?date=2018-04-21

Right over me. Shame I'll be in work, but I'll have my camera up and running just in case.

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Yellow warning out from the MetO:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings#?date=2018-04-21 

Interestingly they have stuck with the "Rain" category... I thought they were introducing a "Thunderstorm" category this year? Given the warning details mention heavy rain, hail and lightning as potential hazards - sounds like a thunderstorm to me...

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Rain now.. shower line can be traced back to north France where there has been some recent lightning.

Heavy showers here now. Very humid .

A lot of high level stuff with little percip hitting ground. Occasional faint distant rumbles can be heard.

Some fantastic cloud scales though.

Look at this little beauty that's just popped up. Thunder can be heard here in Portsmouth.

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Lightning big rumbles now 😁😁😁

Some impressive rumbles and cloudscapes coming off the Channel in south Dorset.

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Feeling very close now and I've just heard a big deep boom in the distance so could be something looming.

Looking at Raintoday it looks as though a fair sized cell is going to get pretty close.

 

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Radar showing a lot more precipitation then actually is falling, however lightning/ storm is less then 3 miles away now. Two seconds from flash to rumble.

Okay the heaven opened.. not a lot of lightning but some serious cloud bursts and flooding.

This is a proper plume type storm not your typical April showers.

It's still 17.8C.

My daughters at uni of Southampton and telling me big thunderstorm with lightning there now 

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My daughters at uni of Southampton and telling me big thunderstorm with lightning there now 

Some serious intense cells across that way with rain rates in excess of 100mm p/hr 

 

 

One mother of a storm right overhead, plenty of fork lightning every couple of seconds, lovely stuff.

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Intense storms stretching from Fordingbridge to Southampton.. I am 2 miles west of that and there is a lot of thunder and lightning but i am on the edge of the rain luckily as i dont want that sort of rain.

Evening all - destabilisation getting going now around the plume boundaries with some quite intense storms (for the time of year) clustering in CS England and in the SW. Also some stuttering signs of storms getting going in N. Wales, but not to the extent that was forecast, so I suspect the MetO warning may be overplayed, but time will tell.

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For northern England, this has all the hallmarks of previous disappointments - the time when things were supposed to kick off has passed and it's unlikely anything will happen now.

I'm not expecting any rain here until tomorrow.

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