Thunderstorm overhead

Posted on July 20, 2025 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birdsong, Blitzortung.org, Garden, Hanging baskets, Light, Lightening, Sound, Speed, Thunder, WeatherLeave a comment

My hanging baskets are getting well watered. I took a video but you can’t really see the rain well. I looked up the storms on blitzortung.org which is a free thunder and lightening monitoring service covering the whole world. There is a line of thunderstorms heading up from the south from the Welsh border to around Derby passing over Stoke-on-Trent and rumbling north.

The closest lightning was about 2 seconds between flash and boom. That’s about a mile away as there is a time delay due to the speed of light being so much faster than the speed of sound. The last combination was about 12 seconds… 2 seconds equals a mile distance, 12 is therefore 6 miles. It’s going North.

One thing I’ve noticed is the rolling boom of thunder seems to last a lot longer these days. Starting soft before reaching a crescendo then gradually fading. There must be so much energy up there! And it’s just stopped raining… And the birds have started singing again…

Thunder over Stoke.

Posted on September 21, 2024September 21, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blitzortung.org, flash, Life, Lightening, live lightening, Rain, rumble, Storm, Thunder, WetLeave a comment

I got home in time to miss the worst of the storm. Thunder rolling over the hill. I stepped out of the car and only got a bit damp, but the lightening was coming, and with it the rain.

The heavy rain has now been falling for hours. I videoed a few seconds, but my phone was out of charge so I gave up trying to catch a lightening strike. I posted what I had recorded on Facebook. Water cascading from the gutter in front of my door, rushing down the hill, overflowing onto the pavement. The sky was dark and full up with energy.

Six hours later and the storm has rebounded back to us a few times, lightening flashes and the loudest roars of thunder I have heard in years. The lights flickered off and on at one stage.

I count the seconds after each flash. 2 seconds is a mile. So I can judge how far away the storm is, if the thunder rolls straight after the flash it’s overhead, if it’s heard after 2 seconds that’s a mile. Currently it’s rumbling 6 seconds after the flash so that’s about 3 miles away.

If you want to look at live lightening maps across the world go to https://www.blitzortung.org

Currently on the site the main storm is a few miles south of Stoke-on-Trent. Looking at the rest of the world the USA seems very active. I recommend turning off detectors and turning on the sound so you can hear how active the storms are. It’s safe to accept cookies but I close all ads.

Soaked!

Posted on April 16, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged April, Cold, Freezing, Hail, Rain, Sandals, Shower, slippers, squelching, Thunder, WeatherLeave a comment

My feet were soaked, my coat got soaked and hail and rain trickled down my neck! The bottom of my trousers acted like a wick and sucked up the water. I was still wearing sandals because I hurt my toes a few weeks ago and the sandals are squelching so I’ve had to get my warm slippers on. It’s not very warm so I’ll get a hot shower.

April showers? Yesterday the next door town had a mini tornado that blew a caravan over and several trees were blown over in the east Midlands. Today we even had a thunderstorm. I only went out to meet a friend, we had a walked up the steep hill to her house and then I was stuck for a while because the hail and rain was so heavy. Water was streaming down the pavements and gutters which is why my feet got so wet.

We are lucky to have rain in this country but a lot of UK farmers have been affected by the wet winter months. Crops have been affected and are not growing like they should. The plants are basically being drowned and many flood warnings have been in force.

Better weather and a high pressure system is expected over the UK in the next few days. Meanwhile I’m going to try and get warm and dry!

Sometimes

Posted on November 22, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2127, Friends, instinct, Memories, Premonition, Stormy, Thunder2 Comments

Do you trust your instincts?

I’m rather wary of instincts, I have been known to trust people even when it has not been earned. Or distrust people who turned out to be the nicest and kindest people that I’d ever met before. But it’s not a regular problem, mostly my instincts aren’t too bad. And sometimes I know instinctively what’s going to happen. I don’t claim to have premonitions, but maybe I observe more subconsciously than I realise. So when something happens I feel vindicated.

But there was the one very odd incident. I dreamt of meeting old friends I hadn’t seen for years in the middle of a thunderstorm. Then a few days later we were cycling out to our friends when we met them and our old friends cycling the other way. That was strange enough, but the clouds were building up and the thunderstorm arrived! We had to take cover in a bus shelter. My dream actually came true! So maybe my instincts should be trusted. X

Slow thunder

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Garden, Hail, Hanging basket, Heat, Photo, Rain, rumbling, Storm, Thunder, Yard2 Comments

Hard to see, but the rain is falling in our yard after several days of scorching heat that despite watering have dried out our hanging baskets.

Thunder is constantly rumbling south of us. I’ve checked blitzortung.org and you can see a large concentration of lightening strikes happening now about two miles away. I tried taking a screenshot of the website but this phone is an awkward beast at times. I’m going to post a video online but not here, I haven’t got enough memory anyway there’s some hail mixed in so it must be cold up in the storm.

The thunder missed us

Posted on June 11, 2023June 11, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blitzortung.org, Clouds, flash, Life, Lightning, live lightning maps, Sound, Thunder2 Comments

There is a website called blitzortung.org you can open up, and if you look at the live maps you can see lightning strikes as they happen. The site covers the whole world but you can zoom in on it.

Tonight it got very dark and cloudy and we had a few flashes of lightning with rumbles of thunder about 5 to 3 miles away (10 and 6 seconds), Light travels fast, sound follows, so 2 seconds equals a mile away.

We just had some heavyish rain but the storm petered out. Looking at the lightning map, the storm split up into two. The storm stopped about three miles away from here

, but a branch of it was heading towards Crewe. There were over 5 thousand strikes in an hour!

I’ve been interested about lightening since I was talking to an elderly lady about 25 years ago. She said she was in her house several years before that. She had the window open because it was so hot, suddenly a ball of lightening came in through the window and bounced off the floor. She didn’t explain what happened afterwards, whether it just dissipated. But clearly it was not too traumatic. I have heard of ball lightning, so it might have been true….

Thunderbolts and lightning!

Posted on March 26, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1886, Drawing, Dream, Electricity, Exciting, lighter, Sketching, Thunder, Weather42 Comments

What is your favorite type of weather?

No thunderstorms in my sketch, just heavy rain. I have memories of several ⛈ thunderstorms though.

Years ago I dreamt of meeting some friends in a thunderstorm, a few days later we cycled over to visit our friends. We suddenly saw them coming towards us, we met up, pleased that we had got together. Then it started raining.. Hard! We ended up sheltering under a bus shelter while it thundered and lightning struck all around us.

Another incident was visiting a friend and a storm started a couple of miles away. We sat and watched it move across the sky while drinking red wine. As it passed over a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky.

Finally during a particularly vicious night time storm I stood on our back doorstep trying to catch an image of lightning on my camera phone. I did, but I can’t find it on my phone to show you so I’ve posted this drawing instead. X

Wet cat!

Posted on September 5, 2022 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat, flash, Lightning, Poem, Poetry, Rain, Thunder, Tuxedo cat, Wash, WeatherLeave a comment

The cat came in crying!

A sudden thunderstorm

Had spooked her

Flash and thunder together

The road, like a river!

Frightened cat

Eyes wide

Fur soaked.

Now she’s washing

at my feet

Still seeking comfort

Drying her back

with her tongue

Grooming the fear away.

It’s humid!

Posted on September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blitzortung.org, detection, Life, Lightning, live images, Rain, Thunder, Thunderstorms, Time, WeatherLeave a comment

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to use this image of last night’s big thunderstorms. Blitzortung.org shows the movement of thunderstorms across the world with almost live graphics of lightning strikes. I looked a while ago and there is another group of storms coming up from the southwest tonight. I guess we really need the rain, I’m not complaining. I just feel hot and my glasses keep steaming up!

It’s interesting to watch other parts of the world but I wish I could also see rainfall radar at the same time as the thunderstorms may just be showers with rain covering only small areas, like microbursts.

Drought?

Posted on August 15, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Clouds, Drought, Heat, heatwave, Lightning, Rain, Thunder, Water, Weather6 Comments

It might rain today, but most of England is parched. The south east, south midlands, and eastern counties look dry and brown from satellite images. We are in the same heatwave that has affected the rest of western Europe. Forecasts say the weather is due to break soon. But with thundery showers due there is not the persistent rain for many days that would replenish the ground water and because the soil is so hard and dry it is compacted and heavy rain could cause flash flooding…. Oh well, Brits always discuss the weather!

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Thunder