SPRING 2006 - part 2: The first May thunderstorms!

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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!
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.....
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....
Make the most of this clear sky - back to haze again shortly!
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!
Over the Carneddau, towers were boiling up. Despite the haze this looked promising....
Another tower, from by the Twin Lakes at Capel Curig.....
...next thing it fragmented halfway up. This was not looking so good!
The Snowdon group under hazy blue (well sort of!) skies....
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....
To my south these funny little towers were forming and moving R-L towards, in the distance, some larger cumulonimbus cells...
...but were again disintegrating from below. I decided to head NE towards Denbigh...
...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.
Back in Capel Curig towers were still forming and disintegrating over the Snowdon group...
...and meanwhile to the S another developing tower had a wriggly little funnel-cloud that persisted for 5-6 minutes under its base...
...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!
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.
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!
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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