It's all getting a bit "Day of the Triffids" out there...

[JamesF]

I've been sitting in a recliner outside this evening in my shorts and t-shirt, peering through the clouds and Perseid-spotting.  I've seen quite a few lovely ones, as it happens.  There's an awful lot of flickering of the clouds as well though.  Either my eyesight is seriously dodgy (I thought it was only the morning after that you were supposed to find you'd gone blind?) or (I assume) I'm seeing some of the light carrying from the thunderstorms currently around Birmingham and Coventry.  I'm struggling to believe it carries that far (100 miles, ish?), but that's my preferred working hypothesis for the time being.

James

Edited August 11, 2020 by JamesF

[John]

1 minute ago, JamesF said:

I've been sitting in a recliner outside this evening in my shorts and t-shirt, peering through the clouds and Perseid-spotting.  I've seen quite a few lovely ones, as it happens.  There's an awful lot of flickering of the clouds as well though.  Either my eyesight is seriously dodgy (I thought it was only the morning after that you were supposed to find you'd gone blind?) or (I assume) I'm seeing some of the light carrying from the thunderstorms currently around Birmingham and Coventry.  I'm struggling to believe it carries that far (100 miles, ish?), but that's my preferred working hypothesis for the time being.

James

I'm doing something similar here.

There is quite an electrical show going on towards the north currently. Either Pink Floyd have reformed and are playing a monster gig or there are some thunderstorms over Chepstow and the Wye Valley.

The latter is more likely I suppose

[Gfamily]

On another forum someone in Bristol is seeing lightning that lightningmaps.org is saying is over Coventry.

We're seeing lightning that's well over 30 miles away. 

[Craney]

9 minutes ago, JamesF said:

 I'm struggling to believe it carries that far (100 miles, ish?)

Well it cetainly was carrying a good 30 miles last night, as I too became aware of the sky-flash.  (usually doubles or triples).  The storm was to the West of Otley when I checked on the radar.

The interesting feature was there was a distinctly chilly Northerly wind blowing where I was, even though the storms wer coming from the South.

[PhotoGav]

Phew, I’m relieved to read this as I have been lying on the sun lounger, enjoying the occasional Perseid meteor, wondering why there seemed to be quite a lot of occasional flashing. Fairly confident it wasn’t my eyes, I had put it down to lights on the combine harvesters I could hear working in nearby fields, but I wasn’t totally convinced!

Would love it to be a Pink Floyd reunion gig! Saw the Floyd at Earls Court in 1994 and would love to relive that whole experience!

[RobertI]

Interesting, I was getting sky flashes too, I am on the Suffolk/Essex Coast! There were a few wispy clouds, but mostly clear, however the sky was really bright even at midnight, and very few stars could be seen Whatever was in the atmosphere last night must have helped to carry the light from the lightning flashes a long distance? 

[chiltonstar]

I was getting flashes from Marlow direction - a good way from Oxford. I had the live lightning map app running on my laptop outside to see how far away the lightning effect could be seen. 

Here, I thought the Perseids were a bit underwhelming, although there was 50% cloud.

Chris

[tomato]

We had an almighty shower of the aqueous kind last night, accompanied by lots of lightning including one strike only a couple of hundred yards away judging by the instantaneous tremendous detonation that followed it. Need to check the dome.

[Fozzie]

9 hours ago, Craney said:

Well it cetainly was carrying a good 30 miles last night, as I too became aware of the sky-flash.  (usually doubles or triples).  The storm was to the West of Otley when I checked on the radar.

The interesting feature was there was a distinctly chilly Northerly wind blowing where I was, even though the storms wer coming from the South.

West of me..? went to bed about 11 ish, it turned really quite oppressively muggy about 21:30..  Didn't hear or see a thing, looked like it rained in around dawn though..  What time are we talking?  

 

[Craney]

2 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

West of me..? went to bed about 11 ish, it turned really quite oppressively muggy about 21:30..  Didn't hear or see a thing, looked like it rained in around dawn though..  What time are we talking?  

 

About 12:30am to 1:00am.   No audio, just flashes.....  Here is the Rainfall chart for 1:00am.     The Live Thunder app was showing activity, but that doesn't necessarily mean cloud to ground strikes.

[Mick J]

11.30pm soft occasional flashing of light to the northwest, seemed quite low, some cloud.  Couple of fast Perseids gone quicker than a blink of the eye, neighbours lights not helping. I was thinking Birmingham/Coventry was to far, but. 

Floyd at Finsbury Park, was that really 1972!!  wonderful show.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Mick J

[Tomatobro]

I set up the antenna for the GRAVES signal and for 3 hours the screen was just swamped with lightning strikes so abandoned it. Mostly cloud to cloud discharges.

 

[Fozzie]

4 hours ago, Craney said:

About 12:30am to 1:00am.   No audio, just flashes.....  Here is the Rainfall chart for 1:00am.     The Live Thunder app was showing activity, but that doesn't necessarily mean cloud to ground strikes.

oh a good distance away then...  I sleep heavy sometimes so thought i might have slept through a good storm then! 

Believe it or not i once slept through a drunk driver crashing their car in to ours, while they were on the drive, if it hadn't had woken the wife up (who went a bit too crazy), i wouldn't have known about till morning..   

[Craney]

A good Yorkshire saying is  " They could fall asleep on a washing line" .......  sounds like it might apply here