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THUNDERSTORM 0026
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Date: 02 to 03-07-1999
It started off with a couple of weaker cells passing close to Macclesfield first, which flickered in the distance and gave a few C-Cs, but then died out as the southern-most part of the Multicell sapped the energy. It was until half an hour later the southern part of the storm passed within a few miles of Macclesfield, creating the bulk of the footage. Discharge rates were seen to be little more than 10 seconds at this point, mostly with faint upper-level I-Cs and lightning shielded by distance and rain-curtains.
Amongst the constant flickering there were a few close C-Cs and a fantastic I-C multi-discharge with tens of return strokes lasting a couple of seconds. As most were distant I-Cs I had to zoom in on the action over the Pennines with the camera.
The southern part of the multicell by this time was over Derbyshire where a friend of mine was camping in a trailer as it passed over. His eye-witness account was that C-Gs were striking the ground viciously around them and a few trees were hit and car alarms were going off all around them. Pretty intense and scary I would imagine! Meanwhile the southern multicell over towards Cambridge was now causing havoc in East Anglia as it moved towards the North Sea at about 4-5am. This cell appeared on the radar to be even more intense, generating huge quantities of lightning and intense rainfall with 14mm of rain falling between 3 and 4am at Wattisham airbase (BBC weather source). The radar image showed the traditional squall line structure of this particular cell with a 60-mile red line embedded within a moderate-rain echo. It wouldn’t have surprised me if there were any tornadic events associated with these storms judging off their shear intensity. It will be a long time before we see thunderstorms of this intensity again in the UK, a truly awesome event.
DUNDEE
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