Friday 1st September 2017 - SE Essex CZ Storm

After a pretty warm day in South East Essex Cumulus Towers had bubbled up throughout the day but only for a few showers in Far East Kent and the Coastal Parts of Norfolk nothing much had happened during the day in SE Essex. As the sun set I did notice a line of bubbling cumulus about 20 miles to my west but thought nothing really of it and went down the pub! Temperatures were now also down to around 12c and the Moon had risen in the Southern Sky.At about 945pm I started to notice some really bright white/blue flashes off to my west and duly looked at radar and was surprised to see a really electrically active storm about 25 miles to my west which was moving from North to South along that boundary I noted earlier in the evening. Thinking nothing of it really I continued to watch the lightning getting further away now to my South West. But what did catch my eye was quite a few flashes now starting to my NNW, this developing storm would pretty much come very close to my area and it was off home to watch the radar. As the storm was near Chelmsford the lightning was starting to die off quite a bit so was initially just expecting a few IC flashes and some heavy rain but luckily for me the storm really developed on its eastern edge around 1130pm. I started noticing some really nice Cg bolts to my North and deep booming thunder. As the storm was pretty much on top of me I did not have any time to make it to one of my favoured locations so it was sit it out at home time and get to the covered part of the garden and shoot away to the south. This Storm had some superb motion and agitated clouds on the leading gust front edge which was getting lit up by bright lightning at times. The best lightning was from the anvil canopy though as the storm was overhead with some lovely crawlers and Cg bolts. Most of them landed out of shot this evening but got some lovely lightning all the same.Below : Spider Lightning (Anvil Crawlers)