Squally Shower With Strong Precip Core

[martinastro]

Taken the day before the big Atlantic storm when there was a risk of thunderstorms (which happened). I saw a strong cell on the radar moving towards Maghera from the west with pink radar echoes so I went out to a favourite old spot on high ground to watch it come in. The shower/cell approached producing strong gusty squalls and sleet/rain. The 2nd and 3rd image show it's very intense precip core heading for town which looked like a rain wrapped wedge tornado  . The last image shows the same precip core over the town, check out the slope of the core caused by strong upper level winds, had the sloping precip core been pointing ahead of the cell in the direction of travel it would have been called as a 'rain foot'. Vertical wind shear was very strong that day. In images 2-4 the cell is moving from R to L.

[Anton]

Great descriptive report Martin together with the superb sharp images, what lens did you use?

Thanks

[martinastro]

Thanks Anton, I was just using the 18-55mm kit lens but I had to use ISO400 as it was very dark. The tinypic compression had killed the quality of the images, they were 980 pixels wide and reduced to 800 pixels wide by tinypic.

[markt]

Fantastic images Martin!!! 

[DaveC]

very sinister skies, great photos

[martinastro]

Thanks Dave 

[JohnC]

 very impressive photos, Martin.Looks like things are winding up. If I saw number 2 when I was  in the US I'd say I was looking at a wedge tornado and the last one is very dramatic too. I need to do what you do too - check the radar.

[martinastro]

Thanks John for the feedback 

Conor and I got out this afternoon before sunset - nice convection around and distant hail showers with shelf cloud miles away over Coleraine. Major flooding in the fields! and snow on the hills. Lightning over W NI. Report of a waterspout near Shetland islands today.