Thanks - yes it was a spectacular storm. So often you see them on the radar exiting France and heading towards the UK, only to totally fizzle-out over the channel at the first sight of Devon and Cornwall! This one did the opposite, it really exploded into action as it made 'landfall'. I'm glad you were able to get a great view of it from Wales.

Thank you for the kind words. Yes it seems most of west and north Devon were treated to a great light show. Suspect it was quite scary up over the moors!

uhhh, yes??

It was quite the spectacle I have to say, and yes the constant flicker was unusual which perhaps explained the somewhat muted thunder compared to a more normal thunderstorm (I'm probably wrong).

Thanks for the compliments on the camera work! I did also film it with a GoPro on a tripod, but that footage only came out as white flashes. The handheld G7X from the bedroom window did a much better job of it and kept everything in focus.

A majority of the lightning was unusually high-up in the atmosphere and obscured by cloud. Combined with heavy rain and hail cores falling from the base of the storms, quite a lot of the thunder sound was muffled.

Ah I see that makes much more sense :)

Thanks - Bath can be very photogenic for night time thunderstorms. Several years ago I captured some lovely forked lightning on my old film camera at Rudloe, in the layby on the A4 between Box and Corsham, looking down the valley in the direction of Bath.

Thanks John! Yes it was tricky to hold the camera still. I had my GoPro on a tripod, but the GoPro struggled with the low light conditions. So in the end it was the compact camera that got the best footage. I quite enjoy these extremes of weather ;-)

Thanks. There is a chance of more storms Sunday night. Torbay and south Devon might have some more luck then. Also it is quite early in the 'storm chasing' season, so there could be other opportunities throughout the summer months of getting some good storms.

John Moore Thanks for the comment. Yes it was totally unlike anything I had ever seen before. Wasn't so much frightening as just incredible to watch. This storm wasn't really forecasted - I think the TV weather had said a risk of isolated thundery showers. Hope you stand better luck of getting some nice summer storms your way!

Thanks, always wanted to visit Japan myself.

Thanks!

Wonderful, must've been lovely to sit out watching a storm in Padstow! Many thanks.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. I've got an older GoPro Hero 3+ and it really struggles in low light conditions. The footage goes very 'noisy' and lightning shows as just faint white flashes. I'm going to see if I can still recover the footage and edit it a bit. Might try an upload of this footage over the weekend. I got about 2 hours worth on the GoPro (I had to clamped onto the outside window sill pointing into the sky). The sound quality was okay, which I'm told is an advantage of the older Hero's over the newer Hero 5. Yes some of those CG strikes were VERY close! You could almost feel the static in the air.

Thanks Scott!

Thanks - yes a bit of train action as a bonus too!

@@williamwoodgate :)

Thanks - yes it was quite a storm. Similar to the June 2005 storm over Wales, but this one went right overhead. I know Gosport quite well - my brother used to live near the bridge at Priddy's Hard. My auntie in Titchfield said they'd had a couple of nasty storms that same weekend and lost power / phones.

Thanks!

Thanks - yes the same so often happens here - you see storms coming across from France and then then fizzle out when they reach the south west. It's all a bit of a gamble as to where these storms will occur and where they go!

Will Woodgate it is frustrating isn't it! My last decent storm was 1998 in Bracknell, Berkshire. They seem to have dodged me since... We might have what you had tonight so fingers crossed!

Me too! I hope for some more storms. This part of the south west has been very deprived of any decent storms since about the summer of 2006.

Certainly was! Thanks.

Thanks!

sounds like them thunder claps where loud!! i slept thru it, but heard south wales had a good storm aswell. apparently theres more coming up from france as we speak

Tobster7469 Thanks!

Thanks, and yes wise advice about going indoors or undercover if you hear a storm. Lightning doesn't necessarily hit the tallest object around. Underground pipes, fence lines and surface utilities can radiate a lightning bolt out a long way, from where it initially hit.

Thanks!

dopiaza2006 yeah sounded like an atomic bomb detonated. Love positive lightning.

I nearly missed it too, because I had just returned home from the Lake District about 8 hours previously! Seemed like this storm fizzled out over Wales. More storms ignited over northern England on the Saturday afternoon. Always a gamble as to where they will happen. The Midlands isn't too badly placed for getting good summer storms.

I dont know mate we dont seem to get that many in the mids to me.....I dont think it fizzled out it just took an angle across the country that missed the midlands lol......you got a good vid to watch though :)

Thank you. According to someone on Twitter, the Devon storm at 2am was visible from as far east as the the Isle of Wight.

not surprised with all that lightning i wish i was there.

Thanks!

Yep! there was a Storm in Plymouth just the other night. I remember thinking that it was exactly a year ago we had that storm and i thought it was an odd coincidence too.

Close - just above Lipson school on the hill, looking north west towards Compton / Seymour Rd.

Super rare here too, i've never seen anything like it before anywhere especially here and ive seen some amazing storms, i woke my kids up and we stood at my bedroom window looking up the river and it was like Armageddon. truly awesome sight

and btw and been really hot the last few days

Basically a cold front moving off the Atlantic through Ireland and into the UK. It ran into a 'Spanish Plume', which is a parcel of warm, damp air from Spain and North West Africa that becomes elevated over the Pyrenees mountains. Combined diurnal heating and big contrasts in land and sea temperatures, this can sometimes provide the optimal atmospheric conditions to ignite these types of storms and keep them fuelled for several hours. The storms appeared to be mid-level. Most of the lightning was confined within the storm clouds, although there were a couple cloud-to-ground discharges. No tornadoes or downbursts that I am aware of. My weather station only recorded about 6mm of rain / hail from the storm, so this indicates there was quite a lot of evaporation happening before the precipitation made it down to ground level. We did have a similar storm back in June 2005, but it was further to the north over Wales and didn't last as long. Like this storm there was lightning every second or so, but the thunder was inaudible.

@@williamwoodgate That storm in Plymouth in June 2005 lasted nearly 7 hours that night! I can still remember it clearly. It came up from France ,our usual direction and then it eventually moved yes into South Wales. Three homes here were hit by lightning that night! Also there was very similar storm here back in August 1975 which was mostly an electrical storm which went on longer then this one [May 2017] despite 5 minutes heavy hail which was rather strange.

it was likely to be elevated convection

Thanks!

Thanks. A few buildings suffered roof damage. Mostly to chimneys and electrics. No actual fires that I am aware of.

Thanks for the feedback. This footage was filmed in short bursts (hand held) on my compact camera. I purposefully only did short clips, because I wanted to enjoy the storm through my own eyes and not an LCD screen the whole time! The 2nd or 3rd clips were taken outside, before the really close cloud-to-ground strikes began and the heavy rain / hail. The footage I uploaded here (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/e5mSqMaZ1L25kYU.html) are some longer clips I took on the GoPro. The GoPro was clamped on an outside window sill. I repositioned the GoPro a couple of times as the storm moved away towards my north.

"...because I wanted to enjoy the storm through my own eyes and not an LCD screen the whole time!" Perfectly understandable, and of course, not so easy to keep a non-locked-off camera pointing in the right direction all the time while you do watch it directly. Many thanks again for what you have captured and shared with us, just an incredible amount of lightning, and, when the storm got closer, almost constant thunder. It must have seemed almost apocalyptic! Two things I'm amazed by, one, your silence during the filming...and two, the electricity staying on. I'm pretty sure our electric would have gone off with all that lightning. Mind you, as you say, it was a mid-level storm, so that may be a factor.

Yes I tried to keep quiet while recording. It's not really a storm you need much commentary for. Interesting comment about the power staying on - our utilities are all underground at this end of town, so it's very rare for a storm to cause a blackout.

Somerset seems to have had a very stormy month. You've done well!

About 12.30am

Thanks

Statistically the south east of England has the greatest average number of lightning days: www.torro.org.uk/lightning_info.php However the geography of London and the built-up urban environment might make observation of storms more difficult.

Michael Langley Thank you, yes it was a beautiful storm

Ive never seen so many lightning strikes in the UK. Its not often we get storms like this.

Totally agree!

Lipson, looking towards Mutley Plain.

Ah ok cool

When I checked the radar, the rainfall intensity was truly off-the-scale. But because this storm was high in the atmosphere and the rain was falling through very warm air, much of it evaporated before it hit the ground. Had the rain got down to ground level, then it would have easily exceeded several inches and caused devastating flooding across a wide part of south west England. Think along the lines of Lynton + Lynmouth or Boscastle - but over a much wider area. Thankfully that didn't happen. Further inland and over Dartmoor, they did get torrential rain from this same storm. There is some footage someone else took in Tavistock showing the intensity of the rain that fell there.

Ah - too bad! Yeah that's the problem with a rare event like this, it becomes a mad scramble for the camera. But thanks for the kind words. Your videos look great, I've just subscribed to your channel.

Ah thank you! I've subscribed to yours also :) It does indeed, I was only awake because my dog woke me up so I was still in a bit of a daze. Down in Cornwall was less intense, we didn't get as many of the forks of lightning that my Plymouth friends saw, but the sky was still flashing like mad.

Thanks, Just seen your video (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y513frhynZebkXk.html) brilliant footage as always. I love the stills you were able to capture from the storm.

Will Woodgate cheers much appreciated

it look like spaceship lightning :)

Yes it was a surreal storm. Just like something out of a disaster movie.

Drifted all the way along i would imagine. We had it in Bognor Regis too.

winchuni22 had it across Leeds and wetherby

Bloody everywhere then! It was impressive.

Michael, I've seen other videos also I seen with my own eyes and all I'm saying is this isn't something I've ever seen in the UK before and as for the what looked like a ball of fire bounce from the sky then explode that I witnessed there's nothing u or anyone else for that matter that will convince me this was just a bad thunderstorm because I used to storm chase up until just over a year ago and believe me I've never seen anything even remotely close to what we all seen that night, nothing against the video great footage all I'm saying is take a look do people honestly believe that is normal because as I said I don't but that's just obv my own personal opinion

I'm not saying that there wasn't a lightning storm there was your right but don't you think there was maybe more going on in that sky then just a thunderstorm we did hear thunder but the majority the time this was all going on the skies were silent for a storm of that size surely u would expect there to be much more noise then a couples of clashes of thunder surely ?? I do honestly believe those clouds were hiding something look at the severity of the lightning and for it to appear so severe behind such thick clouds then imagine the severity of what was actually going on behind the clouds not even in some parts of the u.s do they witness something on that level and they are known for extreme weather conditions if u know what I mean

There is a rare weather phenomenon known as 'ball lightning' or 'orb lightning' which you might have witnessed. Thunderstorms generally improve the air quality, by washing out a lot of pollution / particulate matter from the lower atmosphere and thunderstorm rain can be high in nitrates. This thunderstorm was associated with a cold front, hence there was quite a lot of cloud following behind the storm. Additionally the sharp contrasts in land and sea temperatures in recent days have created thick, low cloud and mist around the coasts.

My area is under Coastal Flooding

Yes, it was quite a storm

Thats more lighting than what I got in the whole of 2015!

also I counted about 15 strikes from that storm in febuary 2017

I'd say get the video up anyway if you can. You could always put a disclaimer about the language!! Always nice to get different perspectives on things!

Will Woodgate thanks very much it went on for about an hour I freaked out at first then started recording

I want to see this vid - especially if it has swearing in it. Adds to the drama!

i dont mean me sorry i mean my family