"Dave Ludlow" wrote in message
news
I was awoken at 5 am BST this morning by distant thunder but it wasn't
long before flashes of lightning started out to my West and soon, the
South too. By 5:30 BST, a few flashes and cracks of thunder were very
close to my location but I had the impression that the worst of it
"skipped" from the Isle of Wight to the South Downs a few miles to my
North, as often seems to happen.

The thunder had essentially ceased by 6 am and from checking the radar
imagery, I expected the (initially moderate to heavy) rain to stop
soon afterwards. But as Nick pointed out in another thread, it
continued for most of the morning - at moderate then light intensity;
very strange. Thanks to David for explaining why, in that same
thread..

It was dry initially, so I was able to check that my rain guage was
empty. I have recorded a total rainfall for the event of 14.2 mm.

Dave Ludlow
Fareham (West)

Here on Portsdown Hill, a few miles east of Dave we had 44mm between 5:30
&
6.00.

Thanks for that John, I've just had a look at the AVbrief radar image
archive and I can see the intense echo in exactly your location on the
5:30 and 5:45 images. They indicate 32mm/h (i.e. off the scale) and
it confirms my thoughts, the worst of it skipped over me - onto
Portsdown Hill as it happens!

Parts of the South West and Central Isle of Wight are showing 32mm/h
for a couple of hours on and off, between about 5 AM and 7 AM BST this
morning and I expect to hear about higher rainfall totals than your 44
mm when the Environment Agency/climatalogical figures are available
for the Island.and Solent area.in general.

I will save all the relevant radar imagery for analysis later this
evening. In the meantime, I hope the Met Office will publish any
additional rainfall data they have, particularly for the Isle of
Wight.

--
Dave
Fareham (West)

Your expectations have materialised as I have to hand a rainfall total
from the Isle of Wight, narrowly exceeding the Portsdown Hill figure.
At Wootton, 5km NE of Newport and 5km W of Ryde, 44.9mm
of rain fell between 2100 and 0900Z most of which occurred during
the storm from 0330 to 0530Z (approx).

Here in Romsey, I emptied 'just' 18.8mm. Unlike Wootton, however,
the thunderstorm merely produced slight to moderate intensity rainfall,
following a period of very heavy rain and a gusty northwest wind (that
awoke me) without thunder, although lightning was visible southwest.
As the heavy rain eased at 0320Z, the first rumbles could be heard,
finally out of earshot by 0515Z.

Most of the overhead activity was medium level (AC cas) producing
a fair amount of CC flickering and long drawn out noises, but lower
bases (CB) and more of the direct CG strikes were evident towards
the south.

Nigel (Romsey, Hampshire).