Tuesday 16th June 2020 - Uk Storm Chase

The Uk was pretty much in the middle of 6 days of a favourable pattern for Severe Storms with a Trough Parked out towards the Western English Channel and moisture being pumped up from the South with SE Flow persisting from Saturday 13th until Friday 19th June. After the first 3 days of this event with probably upto 20 Funnel Clouds and Tornadoes being reported across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales it was becoming clear that my little part of the world namely SE Essex was not going to get even 1 drop of rain from these Storms so drastic action was taken and I focused on this day to chase some storms around Western East Anglia and the East Midlands.Most of the storms this week had been initiated from Convergence Zones from Sea Breezes or Orographic Lift, and some of the hillier areas benefiting from these SE winds were the South & North Downs, The Chilterns, The Cotswolds, Penines and Peak District along with Snowdonia and the Southern Uplands of Scotland.Morning Models were painting a decent picture of a CZ line by around 4pm along the A14 area from Cambridge to Kettering and up towards Leicester and Nottingham so I drove to Northants and watched small popcorn storms initiate and die within 30 minutes for most of the day.Around 530pm the Storm above got its act together near St Neots and was throwing out quite a lot of clear and visible Cg Lightning Bolts, the structure was also pulling together See BelowBut ultimately the Storms never really got to severe levels and I broke off the chase around 730pm with the drive home to SE Essex in front of me.The week did feauture a couple of Supercells in amongst the hundreds of pop up storms but when you are dealing with 500-700jkg of Cape each day finding that one diamond is scarce to almost impossible unless you luck out. Was great to finally hear thunder again though.