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THUNDERSTORM 0024
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Date: 28-05-1999
When it came closer, large C-C spider-lightning (crawling C-Cs with many branches) were becoming visible in the distance to the south west. On final approach the cell was producing much larger C-Cs crawling across the sky followed by a strange ambient silence to the thunder as they were so high-up in the atmosphere. There wasn't much precipitation the entire cell passed over Macclesfield and was showing signs of weakening in the discharge rates. With no latest radar imagery to refresh my image of what was happening out there, I believed that the active trough producing the storms had become a lot more frontal in nature, and the anvil overhang must have been huge to produce such large C-C crawlers. The cellular development may have passed either side of Macclesfield leaving a broken but electrically active break in between.
As the cell started to move away about half an hour later it started to show signs of maturing again in places, starting off with a large C-C spider-lightning in the distance with four separate streaks crawling cross the sky in different directions. Unfortunately only one of the streaks was caught on camera as it was so vast. Then shortly after there was a large multi-C-C spider discharge less than a mile NNE. This lightning is shown above and is probably one of my best captures to date. The thunder wasn't as loud as I was expecting, more crackly than explosive, but still reasonable.
As it passed over the Pennines the discharge rates increased
again and the clouds lit
up from base-level giving away the structure of a low precipitation-free
cloud base. This may have confirmed what I originally thought about the
anvil-overhang with the developing cells at the rear of the cell. |
