Does anyone know if there are maps anywhere which show lightning activity over the UK for the past few years (e.g. average number of lightning strikes per year or suchlike)? It's just I'm convinced Milton Keynes is in a lightning cold spot, as thunderstorms seem to move in bands either to the north or south of us.

Cheers,

Liam (apologies for the login name!)
Milton Keynes

On 07/05/2015 15:30, Simon Cheesbiscuit wrote:
Does anyone know if there are maps anywhere which show lightning activity over the UK for the past few years (e.g. average number of lightning strikes per year or suchlike)? It's just I'm convinced Milton Keynes is in a lightning cold spot, as thunderstorms seem to move in bands either to the north or south of us.

Cheers,

Liam (apologies for the login name!)
Milton Keynes

If you go to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/...aries/anomacts
and look at the Lightning strikes climate variable, you will be able to
see the actual strikes for specific months. There are no anomaly maps
though (as they wouldn't be very useful).

On Thursday, 7 May 2015 15:30:28 UTC+1, Simon Cheesbiscuit wrote:
Does anyone know if there are maps anywhere which show lightning activity over the UK for the past few years (e.g. average number of lightning strikes per year or suchlike)? It's just I'm convinced Milton Keynes is in a lightning cold spot, as thunderstorms seem to move in bands either to the north or south of us.

Cheers,

Liam (apologies for the login name!)
Milton Keynes

Sorry, never seen such a map and I'm not sure how useful it would be. The lightning rate sems to vary a lot over long periods, decades. For instance conventional wisdom in the '50's was that southern England was the most thundery area (in summer) but since about 1990 I'm not so certain this is true.
BTW we all live in thunder dead-spots. This house has never been struck, for instance. :-)

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

On Thursday, 7 May 2015 15:43:05 UTC+1, Metman2012 wrote:
On 07/05/2015 15:30, Simon Cheesbiscuit wrote:
Does anyone know if there are maps anywhere which show lightning activity over the UK for the past few years (e.g. average number of lightning strikes per year or suchlike)? It's just I'm convinced Milton Keynes is in a lightning cold spot, as thunderstorms seem to move in bands either to the north or south of us.

Cheers,

Liam (apologies for the login name!)
Milton Keynes

If you go to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/...aries/anomacts
and look at the Lightning strikes climate variable, you will be able to
see the actual strikes for specific months. There are no anomaly maps
though (as they wouldn't be very useful).

Thanks very much. Somehow I never knew that page existed! It's a bit hard to see specific locations in some months though, as the whole country is just a red blob due to the large symbols. Better than nothing though, I guess.

Liam