On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:07:21 +0100, "Nigel Paice"
wrote:

"Dave Ludlow" wrote in message
news I have recorded a total rainfall for the event of 14.2 mm.

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.

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.

Thanks Nigel, I'd hoped someone would have access to more rainfall
data! So Wootton recorded 44.9mm. I've now checked
http://www.isleofwightweather.com/live/mml/ and see they recorded
40.9mm between 4:30am and 9 am with a further 2.3 mm since then. So
I'd expect localised areas on the higher ground to the South and SW of
Newport to have had more than that - Wootton-Newport does not appear
to be at the point of peak intensity/duration. Let's hope such areas
are covered by EA (or someone's) rain guages!

Cheers, Dave
Fareham (West)