May's been a mixed month so
far with several days of thunderstorms, which
kept me busy although as you will see below the
biggest thunderiest storms proved to be the least
photogenic! Conversely a convective
"failure" gave me the best photos of
the month!
Action kicked off on May 4th and conditions
looked to be quite promising to start with with
the updraught tower L zooming up and looking
threatening. This was seen from the
Machynlleth-Llanidloes mountain road and it
morphed into a local cloudburst that affected
Dinas Mawddwy and Aberangell. As you can see
conditions are a bit hazy - a theme we shall keep
returning to on this page! |
Another thunderstorm from May 4th moving across N
Cardigan Bay, included more for reference
purposes than for its photogenic quality!
However, things do get better!
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This was on the evening of Sunday May 7th. I'd
been leading a geological field-trip all day in
Snowdonia, but on my return convection seemed to
be kicking off so I headed off up the mountain
road. Convection wasn't strong but the display of
crepuscular sunrays was one of the best I have
seen for a long time.....
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Crepuscular
rays are best seen when there's a lot of
particulate matter in the atmosphere - dust,
pollen etc. The particles scatter the sunlight
and the more are there, the greater the effect of
contrast....
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Make the most of this clear sky - back to haze
again shortly!
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Thunder and fairly close lightning disrupted
another field trip on the afternoon of Thursday
May 11th, and with a similar forecast for the
12th I decided to go on a mission, so I headed
north up to Snowdonia. This is a rare chance to
stand in the middle of the A5 near Ogwen without
getting run over!
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Over the Carneddau, towers were boiling up.
Despite the haze this looked promising....
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Another tower, from by the Twin Lakes at Capel
Curig.....
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...next thing
it fragmented halfway up. This was not looking so
good!
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The Snowdon group under hazy blue (well sort of!)
skies....
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It was now close to lunchtime and I decided to
head east along the A5, encouraged by a BBC
forecaster mentioning cells firing near Wrexham.
Things certainly looked more interesting near
Cerrigydruidion....
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To my south these funny little towers were
forming and moving R-L towards, in the distance,
some larger cumulonimbus cells...
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...but were
again disintegrating from below. I decided to
head NE towards Denbigh...
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...where it became clear that visibility close to
the storms would be awful, so I turned and headed
back. This was taken about 4 miles from Denbigh
and shows a ragged but not particularly exciting
updraught base.
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Back in Capel
Curig towers were still forming and
disintegrating over the Snowdon group...
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...and meanwhile to the S another developing
tower had a wriggly little funnel-cloud that
persisted for 5-6 minutes under its base...
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...photoshopped here to aid seeing it! I'm pretty
sure that it was a funnel because of its
smoothness and persistance but in that visibility
it was hardly earth-shattering stuff!
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By now I had decided to head S and then SE -
vaguely in the direction of home, as there was
nothing much going on here! A last view of
Snowdon.
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A few miles E of Dinas Mawddwy on the Welshpool
road I ran into some bigger cells. This was taken
approaching them, and I pushed on in to get a
nice lightning display to round off the day!
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After that it was home and pub-time. This is
looking back at the same group of storms. All I
can say is "DAMN THAT HAZE"!! Not the
most successful day out but I enjoyed the
lightning show!
The following day was much more interesting but
that film's still in the camera!
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