SPRING 2007- part 3: May - Snowdonia stormchase!

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A mixed bag of weather we have had indeed! Although wet and chilly at times, May also gave some decent settled spells which one had to make the most of: the trend continues now (mid-June), with dryer days interspersed with fine starts but followed up with widespread heavy showers and thunderstorms, with some pretty serious flooding in places. More about the latter in the next update!

There is a distinctly North Walian flavour to this entry, due to my love of a) fishing the steep rocks on the Lleyn and b) chasing after thunderstorms wherever they pop up - a chase across North Wales thus follows some fairer-weather images!

Arriving at Borth for a fishing-stint (the turbot showed for a few days in mid May) I was struck by these wave-forms in the upper-air clouds. On the L are some crude Kelvin-Helmholtz waves (the curved "herringbones", whilst top R is a formation that reminds me of a coiled serpent preparing to strike!
Here's another - I had the chest-waders on!
Inland there are some different wave-clouds with virga trails behind them caused by tiny ice-crystals falling out and being carried away on the strong upper winds....
Despite a few turbot being caught locally, a lot of our fishing was on the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula, where the mackerel and pollack made a good early showing. Here's the view from one of our favoured spots - looking out across the Sound to Bardsey Island (Ynys Enlli - translating into English as "the island of the strong currents"). Bardsey is probably derived from the Norse name for the island. As the tide turned at Low Water, and the flood kicked in, the rip past this point was incredible. I tried to capture the movement on film but to be there is a quite mesmerising experience!
On the way back one evening the setting sun illuminates an ancient field-system - who knows how long ago this last produced its goods!
Convective episodes came and went and were mostly not that impressive. Here's a modest little storm trying to get going over the Cambrian Mountains, with Mynyddgorddu Windfarm, near Talybont, in the foreground....
Meanwhile above Machynlleth another attempt at convection is underway! It produced some nice cloudscapes but nothing more - a midlevel capping inversion blocked its progress.....
I had to wait until the last day of the month for a better show. With instability forecast to be strong and no serious cap to screw things up, storms developed rapidly and drifted northwards. As a series of storms had left the Cardiganshire coast I planned an intercept down at Uwchymynydd - nice coast plus spectacular weather (so I thought!). Here the storms can be seen beginning to approach Pwllheli....
...but down at Uwchymynydd, they were not playing! Decayed cells and a bit of virga was all that was on offer. I turned and headed NE towards an area of more interesting developments...
This was the view approaching the Rivals on the Aberdaron-Nefyn road. I headed onwards for a full-on intercept!
....made here just inland from Dinas Dinlle. Some nice structure apparent....
...and even better here! This was worth the trouble taken. The storm moved out over the Menai Straits....
...leaving grey outflow in its wake - see here looking inland towards the Nantlle hills. Time to head homewards, so I went via Caernarvon and Llanberis, and then on up the pass....
...pausing to grab this photo of Crib Goch with evaporation-fog streaming off its slopes. Heavy rain soon returned again and the drive through to Betws-y-Coed, Penmachno, Cwm Prysor and Bala was marked by gloom and a lot of water! At Bala a clearance came through...
...giving this nice shot of a lone remnant cumulonimbus cloud over the hills: Arans in the background and Llyn Tegid in the foreground. Not a bad day, then - nothing that severe but some good structure set in the superb scenery of Snowdonia!
It's Noctilucent Cloud time again! This means late nights on the beach, hoping for clear skies after sunset. These have been uncommon so far, and on the nights when it has been clear the noctilucent clouds have been elusive! But there is always the compensation of twilight cloudscapes - I loved the scattered small cumulus fractus clouds in this view. Twilight on the beach is a magical time to be there. So, the noctilucent hunt goes on! It is becoming as much of a challenge to me as getting images of a tornado on the ground. But life without challenges would be a dull one indeed!
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