EXPLOSIVE Shotgun Thunders | Positive Strikes | 7th May 1999 | Macclesfield, UK

#ElectricSkyUK Storm Number T0022 | Explosive Thunders | 07/05/1999 | 16:30 Macclesfield, Cheshire UK
An early continental plume got scraped northwards and destabilised ahead of an approaching upper trough from a broad late spring Atlantic weather system. Standard plume setup, and the convergence point was over the Midlands and NW England, resulting in an initial thunderstorm followed by some dynamic heavy rain.
Some close CGs occurred, unfortunately off-camera, but made for some nice sounding thunder.
The explosive thunder suggests positive CG, but is always hard to tell given the base of the storm was already high. This conundrum comes about as CGs from elevated storms (storms initiated not from the surface, but from 4000-10000ft altitude) travel across a larger potential difference and electrical resistance, meaning higher amps are needed, and therefore hotter bolts = louder thunder. V-IR.
[On the side, I do have a slight belief that a lot of what we think are positive flashes are indeed negative - it's all in the direction of the branches which usually point in the direction of positive charge]
Assessment at www.electricsk...
[Website] www.electricsk...
[Pictures and Posts] / electricskyuk
[Video] / electricskyuk
[More posts] / electricsky_uk
#Thunder #Thunderstorm

[@Agui007]

Hi Mark, the thunder at the beginning was definitely positively charged! I'm convinced that high humidity and low based storms adds to positive lightning. This was a good year being so humid!

[@RichieRouge206]

Not far off the thunder we had in Aug 2020 here in Chester. Great footage

[@Spudchucker92]

Think I very very vaguely recall my location in Hertfordshire getting storms later that night, which were unusually intense for early May.

[@michaelveis6498]

They get some pretty hefty thunderstorms in the U.K. Not as powerful as storms in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida or Arizona, but they're pretty strong.

[@ElectricSkyUK]

Yup we couldn't hold a card up to the US, but we are often rewarded by our proximity to both the Arctic and Continent (cold meets hot = boom). We actually had a supercell and tornado in Devon today which was uncalled for 😀

[@Joe977]

Hi mate do you know if there will be any storms in and around Brighton soon? I was dissapointed there hasnt been any yet :(

[@kirstyjackson3317]

We had that in Hemel so scary

[@karenannking3398]

Ue the storm was nad here in ellesmereport that lightning bolts sounded like a bomb going off