What a day! I'm completely soaked as I write this. First of I seen a decent thunderstorm in Maghera during the early afternoon with strong inflow and blue i-c and occasional c-gs with loud thunder.
After this I was outside Draperstown where I saw a brief funnel cloud below a towering cu, it was the real mc coy, no question about that, but far away from the ground. I got some very poor snaps because the car was bouncing like crazy along the rough country roads leading up to the mountains. Seeing anything from NI roads is a nightmare with all the trees and hedges.
Next I was on top of Slieve Gallion where I saw a powerful cell on the E side of Lough Neagh with long flanking line, it was rock solid and seemed to be a serious cb with over shooting top. From the same location I observed t-storm number two far away to the NW dropping blue c-gs in the distance.
Before 19.00 back in Maghera we had the most almighty thunderstorm, the very best of the year so far with intense rain and some hail. The entire W sky was black as night with the storm announcing itself with a solid shelf cloud like something from the US. The storm produced almost continuous lightning for over one hour with three and even four blue-coloured bolts at the same time with the odd c-g thown into the mix. The thunder was frightening!. I was in a field this time trying to get video which wasn't very successful due to the rain but during the process I had an experience which I shall never forget which scared the life out of me. A sheep was hundred yards to my left, a flash of nasty lightning erupted above me, I instinctively took cover then glanced back at the sheep....it was stone dead, it had got killed instantly by a bolt of lightning!!. It was a horrible sight to see but what made it even worse was that it could have been me, someone was watching over me today!
So, a brillant day of storms, haven't a decent image from the lot but will post I have in due course along with some video.
Here's the sferics from that massive evening storm...