Astronomy, Photography and Weather

From UKWW...

Well marked cold-front will cross the British Isles overnight, with quite a pressure kick. A strong cross-frontal 850 hPa flow may allow for 'rear inflow' to develop, with a forced line of shallow convection marking the surface front. Gusty winds are likely with this, along with brief heavy rain.

Post front, plenty of squally showers will pile into western and northern parts, especially western Scotland, with hail/thunder/sleet/snow all possible. This will lead into a very showery day on Sunday as a cold pool passes over. Thunder is possible almost anywhere, and a more marked band of showers, some with sleet/snow, looks like pushing SE through Scotland during the day, ending up in N England. Also, an area of more frequent showers may spread east across central/southern England and Wales. With fairly strong tropospheric flow, some of these could organise into small bows/clusters, and produce strong winds/heavy hail. Fairly strong low-level shear also looks like bringing the risk of brief tornadoes.

Lightning in W N. Ireland now. Intense radar returns from approaching cold front which is moving E!

Holy sh**t!!!. I happened to check the radar and seen severe radar returns on the leading edge of the approaching cold front, it looked to me like a powerful squall line forming. It was raining here at the time so I went to the back door to see if anything cool could be seen in the dark, just before 20.00 UT - BANG!!!we got hit by the most incredible downburst/squall of violent winds I can recall in a long time. It blew torrential rain side-ways and become so powerful that my house began to shake violently (witnessed by my family members), I couldn't believe the horrific power of that wind and honestly believed a tornado was about to hit, I actually screamed at my family to get down!. It was absolutely incredible but stopped after a few min's then back to 'normal' rain. This was followed by 4 bright stropes of blue lightning and thunder. That is one severe cold front moving through...watch out! I have some video of this but it's handicaped by darkness. Only a portion of the rain and wind can be seen below the shaking streetlights. - WOW

hi martin, was just standing outside there after reading the convective forecast you issued, torrential rain, big wind gusts, then a crazy bolt of lightning out of the blue, was like a set of spiders legs covering the sky, excellent stuff,,, pity i didnt have my camera at hand! hopefully theres more to come!

Martin think I experienced something very similar to you at around 826pm in Newtownabbey.

We were sat watchin tv and I was havin a look at the rainfall radar. The wind had picked up and the rain was getting so hard we decided to turn the tv down to have a listen.

Then all of a sudden the roar that came down the chimney was unbelievable. I ran to the front door to look out and as I opened it the rain almost hurt as it hit me in the face. It was almost a struggle to stop the front door from blowing backwards and my bro then came running in as the wind comming through the door was rattling the blinds all over the house.

It only lasted a few mins and all is quiet here now. I didnt manage to see any lightning but there is always next time.

For a moment I also imagined a tornado was about to hit lol. Really cool stuff.

Stuart

Thanks very much Scott and Stuart for your excellent valuable reports. In what descriptions they were too!. Love the description of the lightning and winds. Glad you thought a tornado was hitting too Stuart, I certainly wasn't exaggerating and hoped others would take the report seriously. I'm just off the phone from talking with John McConnell on here and he and his brother reported the same thing, severe winds, horizontal rain, hail, lightning and thunder. We agreed that there is probably damage done somewhere tonight and a tornado event is quite likely somewhere if it hasn't already occured!. John and I reckon those winds could have been greater than 80mph, they reminded me of the severe winds I have seen on videos showing the RFD on US Supercells or the winds of a mesocyclone. Awesome forces.

The UKWW guys are trying to get some radar data on this. Looks to have been a very violent fast moving squall line which formed on the leading edge of this intense cold front. Imagine seeing that in daylight, it would have a stunning shelf cloud on it!.

Keep your eyes open for more reports. An amazing, and quite unnerving experience!

Sferics charts from the time. Matches perfectly with what was observed...

(http://i42.tinypic.com/2jd3xj9.gif)

Pause this radar at 20.00 and you can see the radar returns of the squall libe hitting my area....

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

Got similar here. Did not hear thunder or see lightning but we did have the power knocked off.

Those links are great Martin. It all matches exactly with what was reported.

If you look at my area in Newtownabbey at 826pm thats when i experienced it. You can actually see it moving right through from your area to mine.

great!

from John Mason of the UKWW...

Martin - have archived radar images every 5 minutes 2000-2020. 2015 shows some exceptionally heavy precip - almost off the scale! All show >70mm/hr echoes along a thin and obviously intense line-echo, with wave features. Not surprising to see what you report given these.


Cheers - John

It hit here at 8-20 pm an easy jet on final approach to land had to abort i was listening to it on the air band the wind gusts where the strongest i have felt along with the lighting it was a wild weather event,all calmed down now.

jonathan.

On raintoday at 8pm and 815pm is that a broken s feature? Im not very familiar with the radar terms and what they look like.

It sure is Stuart, it's a 'bowing segment' when can indicate tornado formation  :)

Had severe hail storm pass through recently.

Thanks for the reports Brian and Jonathan!

Thanks for the info Martin.

I just read on UKWW that a weather station at Cloughfern (just 5 mins from my house), recorded winds of 95kph!

here is the link for that weather station graph.  http://sproule.co.uk/weather/graphs.html

It jumps from 37kph to 92kph gust.

There also seems to be a drop in temp and pressure. Interesting

Yikes!!!, phenomenal!

Thanks for the text warning Martin! Gosh it was rough here for about five minutes or so around 20:20UT. I saw two good flashes of lightning with the crack of thunder at the same time as the first one, it must have been overhead. My Brother saw a couple of flashes about five minutes before me with thunder as well, he's about five miles west of me. He was getting worried in case it was another tornado, in fact it was very similar to the one which produced the tornado that hit him a few years back. At one stage I was looking for the strongest place in the house, it was terrible.

No problem John  :)

Here's a video of the squall impacting. Watch as the winds suddenly increase. It was much worse that it seems on the clip. Please excuse my excited chat. I was shouting at my family to get down when the house began to shake!. Some lightning flashes visible too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_CpyraXXQw

(http://i42.tinypic.com/r2s4ls.png)

Storm Forecast
Valid: Sun 08 Mar 2009 06:00 to Mon 09 Mar 2009 06:00 UTC
Issued: Sun 08 Mar 2009 02:06
Forecaster: SCHLENCZEK
SYNOPSIS / DISCUSSION

A large upper trough over the eastern Mediterranean is forecast to travel eastward while weakening. In the wake of the trough, some hundred J/kg of CAPE will be available, leading to showers and thunderstorms over the eastern Ionian / Aegean Sea. Both shear and forcing are very weak and severe weather is unlikely. Locally, LL lapse rates can reach values above 10 K/km and isolated waterspouts are not ruled out but overall threat should stay well below the level-1 threshold.

Further upstream, a large low pressure complex over the northern North Sea will lead to unsettled conditions over large portions of western / northwestern Europe. The upper jet streak over the British Isles will translate southeastward during the period. Some low-end instability is expected to be created in the wake of the trough where weak DLS is present. GFS shows some little CAPE along the cold front over France in the morning hours but it is uncertain whether appreciable convection will develop in that region or not. A narrow convective line may develop and isolated gusts exceeding 25 m/s are not ruled out.

wow thats a pretty sever downpour there Martin! 60mph winds are tough to stand in! lol. glad to see you guys got a good downpour and some lightning  :)

Did you happen to see a shelf cloud? I know it was at night, but maybe lightning lit it up? that video really shows the intensity of the storm Martin, good job. Its pretty tough getting a feel for a storms intensity at night, since everything is black, but you did a good job of it. The yelling helped too  ;D

Did you observe comets on that night?  ;) :D ;D

P.S. At least you have some stormy weather there. Here is no storms, and no clear skies, just boring...  :-\

LOl...thanks guys. Please excuse my yelling and cursing at the start. I really don't like the fact that those words are on the video, it's somewhat embarrasing because I don't normally curse like that. In my defense that was my real reaction to a severe event taking place. I should explain more, I was actually taking the video from inside my house through the open back door facing E. The squall came from the W behind me so I was in the sheltered side! lol. The video only shows half the story due to the darkness. The roar was unbelievable and so was the violence of the squall, when the camera shook that was when my entire house began to shake like crazy, I yelled to my family to get down because I honestly thought either the windows would get blown in or the roof would get ripped off because everything 'felt rite' for a tornado hit, even the sound. It was a severe and serious event which I will never forget, I actually felt a little scared to be honest. I'm still buzzing from it. The lightning was excellent but the wind and rain was too heavy to get exposures away from the estate. I didn't see the shelf Tyler because it approached from behind me in the darkness over the mountains, I stuck my head out to look for one but that was when the squall hit me...talk about timing. By looking at the high res radar it was almost certain this one packed a stunning shelf.

I didn't see any comets after this Roman, it was clear between hail and snow showers but there where icy orphan anvils around messing wiith the trans.

Here's a couple of rubbish stills from the video showing the horizontal rain/hail and lightning flashes.

(http://i43.tinypic.com/1038l50.jpg)

(http://i40.tinypic.com/9uqmhi.jpg)

(http://i44.tinypic.com/2dinjmx.jpg)

(http://i39.tinypic.com/2ch3yjb.jpg)

Further lightning and snow showers in the country today.

More reports from the squall last night....

''Hello Martin, I'm Colleen and I am highly interested in weather, I go onto your website every day to look for the latest conditions. I am interested in thunderstorms etc. But Last night's unexpected squall line was unreal.. it did scare the s**t out of me at first, but I grew to like it. I watched and read your update of it and you seemed to get it worse in Maghera, as down here in Portglenone we did get strong winds, heavy rain and thunder and lightning, but it was more serve in Maghera''...Colleen, Portglenone.

''Hello Martin, I’m just dropping you a line about the unusual weather event tonight. In fact, I had intended to drop you a line before visiting the weather forum where I see the information is already starting to flow in I was in a friend’s house in Ballyronan when we heard what sounded like a massive explosion overhead. We immediately turned off the house lights in the hope of catching sight of some lightning. We weren’t to be disappointed. In total we saw two blue coloured flashes to the east. It’s not possible to say if the lightening occurred over Lough Neagh or over the County Antrim shoreline beyond. These flashes were accompanied by distant rumbles of thunder. The thunder was followed by intense rainfall – it was literally falling horizontally.  While there were gusts of wind it really didn’t seem all that noteworthy. It wasn’t until I made my way home in the direction of Toome that I realised the full extent of what had taken place. At various points the road was covered with debris blown from trees and hedges. It was obvious the area had been hit by violent gusts. Just outside Ballyronan the road was partially blocked with a fallen branch. When I returned home flower pots were strewn across the yard''...Connla Young.

''The squall came through my location at approx 8pm last night. Very strong winds for a time and several very bright and long flashes of overhead lightning with loud cracking thunder. Absolutely superb night time thunderstorm for early March. I can't remember the last time we had a night time storm so early in the year''...Greg Lloyd, Ballinderry''

From UKWW (John, our wind estimate was a good one!)

Report of possible tornado at Ballyclare, Co Antrim, N. Ireland around 2000GMT on the 7th March 2009. Damage to trees on a farm near the town, but no damage to buildings. Location of farm w.r.t the town not known.

IMHO likely to have been SLW damage. There was a gust to 74kt (87mph) at Donaghadee Harbour between 2000 and 2100UTC, this given the weight of rain or hail with the wind would have been sufficient to damage trees.

Severe winds lasted for around 30 seconds with a noise like an express train.

Martin those images and video are great. I wish i had my camera on standby last night.

Ballyclare is just 5 mins from my house. I am going to take a drive up there to get some images now.

Good man Stuart!. It was probably straight line winds but if you can evidence of rotation then that would do the trick!  :)

Anybody see anything today?. Just had a flash of lightning in the NE. I seen some stonker cells today but haven't got a decent image to save my life because of poor light our else in a car with trees blocking the view. I seen powerful looking cb line with mammatus over Maghera - from Ballyronan!!, that was a beast. It was white and solid looking, did anyone see that?.

Had some big decaying cells with small mamma from home at sunset, might have a good one of I'm lucky. Have to sort out images. Some good dark convection bubbling up my W against the dark twilight sky, looks interesting. Had some hail also.

Dark now but thunder just heard at Portballintrae (1933 UT)

I had a wee look around the area and Ballyclare but couldnt really find anything too major.

Had alot of trees that appeared to be damaged but that was widespread everywhere really. In Ballyclare i found a field that appeared to have a large tree lyin in the middle of it but it was gettin dark so I couldnt see. I might return tomoro to have a look.

It was like findin a needle in a haystack tho as there are soooooo many farms in Ballyclare lol.

I didnt get many photos today but seen some nice cells forming but again no lightning for me this year lol.  My time will come.

Thanks for the report Brian.  Never mind Stuart,  at least you tried!, I could imagine the country being a maze out there. Some of the damage may have already been cleaned up but there might be some evidence around yet. Good luck if you are heading out again.  :)

Some serious minor squalls of hail here. Seen some great anvils against the stars lit by the Moon. There's lightning activity to the N and W.

Just a quick mention - I awoke at 0230 this morning an realised that strong moonlight was shining in the window and it was tipping down with rain, so I looked out the front of the house, away from the Moon, and there was a Moonbow - I've photographed on before but never seen one naked eye! Very strange as it was monochrome - just not enough light to fire up the colour receptors on my retina I guess!

Great stuff Paul, glad someone seen one of these guys last night.

I suspected the early morning hours to be the best night this year so far for Moonbows.  :)

Just got another report...

''Hey mate, just letting you know our smoking area in work in Belfast was ripped out of the ground during Saturday's storm. Was pretty bad here. My mates Mother text her as she had heared there had been a tornado in Crumlin but have not had this confirmed, think it was a rumour but exciting though!!!''...Chris Tennyson, Crumlin

I didnt get a chance to get up to Ballyclare to look for more damage but I may get up tomorrow.

I think the damage seems to be fairly widespread from Ballyclare to Newtownabbey so I think it would definitely have been straight line winds down here.

I would have loved to have seen this storm during the day. Who knows what we would have seen.

Its amazing how the storm remained so intense as it travelled from your area Martin, to Newtownabbey and across to the coast.

I wish I had seen it in daylight too, imagine the shelf cloud on that beast, I bet it looked like something from the states. On the plus side, the lightning looked great in the dark, pity the rain was torrential though, impossible to get an exposure of the lightning out in that. Jonathan Bingham told me he has video of the lightning too, so that's two video clips from the incident. More info might come to light in the days ahead.

Good luck tommorow Stuart, take you camera with you incase you spot anything  :)

Amazingly there has been no mention of it on the news...not surprising given the current headlines!

I have changed the title of this thread since it has been needed for some time now, better for research reasons. Will hopefully get my hands on radar images shortly.

A report from the Republic

http://www.argus.ie/news/freak-powerful-wind-causes-damage-at-dundalk-stadium-1670612.html