Thunderstorms

You'll either love it or hate it, whatever the case may be it certainly gets your attention. Scotland as a whole gets off lightly as far as thunderstorms are concerned. My site, on average, only records five thunderstorms per year; most of those are small, rapid affairs. Occasionally though we can get big ones developing from the heat of a summer's afternoon.

July 11th 1995

(An extract from a mail I wrote about it)

The initial breakdown in the weather came on Tuesday the 11th of July (it had been exceptionally dry here for 7 weeks or so preceding- an official drought).

At 6pm that day the temp. was 24C, within the half hour before that a huge cumulonimbus had been building right over Wishaw. Fireworks were a certainty. Sure enough at 6.50pm it began a pyrotechnics display never before witnessed in this area.

The lightening was all ctg (fork). There was, at one point, strikes every 0.5 seconds. Most of the strikes I witnessed were around the Cambusnethan, Coltness area. The rain fell at an intensity I've never witnessed before and since. Within half an hour I had to rush out into the monsoon like rain, to empty my old rain gauge (75mm). Whilst doing this a fork of lightening crossed the sky directly over my head, the thunder was instantaneous, cracking first in my left ear then my right. It was like a bomb exploding the noise was so deafening. I guess the bolt could only have been 25m or so above me (nearly sizzled to death).

Only 3/4 of an hour after the storm started the clouds were breaking, the storm petered out by around 8pm. definitely the most locally intense storm I've ever witnessed or recorded. The precipitation total for that day was 94mm to the nearest mm (my 1 day record) (might've lost half a mm in the time it took me to empty the gauge) and all of this fell within an hour and a half.

July 14th, 1995

That morning (Friday, July 14th, 1995) I new the conditions were perfect for another day of pyrotechnics. By 11.30 am the temp. was sitting at 77°F but the sky was getting really dark to the south, yet another weather feature was added to my vocabulary, namely the multicell. Looking to the South- there was a huge mass of cumulonimbus, with many anvils all jockeying for position over each other.

I could barely believe it, here was a possible tornado spawner right before my very eyes. Action would be fast and furious so I had to quickly get to a position to witness this monster. Bad mistake!! At 12.30 PM I was sitting in my mates' car beside Wishaw train station. The lightning had just begun, it was all over. Motherwell, Hamilton, Wishaw, Carluke, Newmains. The forks were all over. I decided to go onto the stairs at the train station, as you might know, you get a great view of the locale from there. Within two minutes I was rushing back to the car absolutely drenched. The rain was bouncing 2 feet off the road it was so heavy. We sat there for about an hour, and in all that time the rain and lightening didn't abate at all. It was thrilling.

There was a strike every two seconds for around two or three hours. The direction that seemed to get the worst of it was the Ravenscraig site. By 2pm or so I decided to move to another location, in order to give myself a chance of seeing any possible tornadic events. We drove down to Marshall Street, Wishaw and then along to the West cross, bad mistake. The Main Street was like a raging river with drains bursting under the water pressure all the way up the hill. No way was the car going to get up there. My friend decided to do a U-turn at the bus stop outside Tesco but the car in front of us broke down, so we were stuck and the water began to pour inside the foot wells of the car, then the engine stopped.

That was that, no Tornado chasing for me. We got out the car and headed for Tesco in a hurry, the water was shin deep rushing down the street. When we got to the entrance of the shop the electric doors were closed and I later found out this was because the shop had a power-cut, part of the roof had collapsed due to the weight of water that had accumulated, this shorted all the power. We abandoned all hope and headed into the Commercial bar for a pint or two until the worst was over. It was 4.30pm when it finally cleared up, but the roads were in chaos so we had to walk it home. Well that was my memorable day.

The stats. bore out that I collected 84.2mm of precipitation that day, but I know there must have been a few areas locally with much more than that, It's a pity no-one had a rain gauge underneath it. The flash floods that day will go into history for this area due to their severity. There were confirmed reports of a small tornado in Bothwell (7 miles west) that afternoon, it was said to have touched down for around 20 seconds, twisting some small trees to pieces and then launching a kids small play chute 40ft in the air. The Clyde burst its banks all over the place, the Clyde Bridge on Motherwell Road was closed, and so was the Garrion Bridge. Glasgow's argyle rail line was flooded.

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Intense lightning storm - 3rd July 2001

This was a short lived affair, though very intense for this location. I had noticed around 10:30pm (as it was falling dark) that there was a lot of distant lightning to my south. I decided to keep an eye on the situation. Within 15 minutes I could hear the first distant rumbles. By 11pm it was very close by. But the lightning had accelerated in its intensity and there was roughly a spark every 4 or 5 seconds. Around this time the heavens opened with an hour long torrential downpour of rain, which by midnight had totalled 69mm (my highest ever 1 hour total). The lightning reached a peak at roughly 11:20pm of around 1 flash per second, most of it was internal cloud, though around 5% was cloud to ground. It was the most enthralling display of night lightning I have ever seen but all too quickly the storm moved on and dissipated. I can't wait until my next "strobe lightning" experience.

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Electrical skies - 30th May, 2003

This storm kicked of pretty much at midday, I was meant to be sleeping at the time as I had been nightshift but this thunderstorm quickly woke me up. Right from the start it was laden with lightning and torrential rain. I was quite bewildered and half sleeping as I watched the impressive forks and heard the thunder peeling. There were forks crossing the sky every 10 seconds or so and this rate was increasing. By 12:30pm the rain was torrential and quickly turning roads and pavements into streams. Around this time the storm appeared to be overhead and there were several lightning strikes easily within half a mile. The rain then abated somewhat but the lightning and thunder remained relentless. By 1pm it appeared to be moving off east though there was still the odd close strike. By around 1:10pm the heavens opened again, for a few moments it felt as though the house and local had been moved under a waterfall. This was quickly replaced by a hailstorm, the hail was around 20mm in diameter and the noise alone was incredible, it was very short lived (perhaps only 2 minutes) but as it turns out this location got off very lightly in that respect........

By 1:45pm one inch of precipitation had passed through my rain gauge, but in one single minute (at 1.11pm) 3mm was recorded - equating to a staggering and extreme rate of around 180mm/hour. And still the thunder and lightning continued with as much gusto. Here is a chart of the lightning recorded in the one hour preceding this time.

Between 2pm and 3pm the rain was far lighter and as one storm appeared to move slowly to the east - it was slowly being replaced by one moving in from the South West. The thunder and lightning however did not loose any of its intensity and continued at splendid rates within the very near vicinity or indeed, overhead. Between 3pm and 4pm the rain became torrential again in several bursts as the new storm slowly moved overhead. This cell didn't contain as much electricity either, but was still impressive by normal standards. Soon after 4pm the thunder began to disappear into the distance as clearer skies from the west pushed in.

In total I must have witnessed or heard far more than 1000 lightning strikes within those four hours. The rain total from the storm wasn't so exceptional at around 32mm - however, a mere mile or two to the South of this location the story was completely different......

..... Wishaw town centre, Pather, Overtown, Waterloo and Gowkthrapple areas all had a far more severe tale to tell. Many streets were flooded and roads closed in these areas by the volume of rain they had received. Many houses and businesses were saturated also in the flash-floods and damage to property was aplenty. The hailstorm in these areas lasted 20 minutes and consisted of golf ball sized hail. Drifts and accumulation of hail 3 feet deep were seen where floodwater had washed up the large chunks of ice. The hailstorm was so intense that it stripped much leaf cover from trees and even caused considerable abrasion to stone and rough-cast surfaces. A few car drivers were caught in the midst of the chaos and had to be rescued by dingy from they're cars in the rapidly rising floodwaters. These parts of the town have never had anything approaching the flooding problems that arose that afternoon, some areas resembled small lakes - far worse even than 1995. It is fair to assume that over 100mm of precipitation would have fallen in these areas in those four hours. Fortunately there were no fatalities.

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Fast charging clouds - 10th May, 2004

            I'm beginning to think that the Wishaw area is Scotland's own version of lightning alley - so frequent over recent years are major thunderstorms.

          Picture it; A beautifully warm Monday, the first truly warm day of the year. Those fortunate enough to have the day off from work (like myself) are basking in the garden. The temperature climbs up to 22.2ºC in a near cloudless sky. Ten minutes later some cumulus blot out the sun, ten minutes later again and the cumulus are towering many thousands of feet toward the stratosphere. Before your very eyes huge anvils are forming, it's a sure fire thunderstorm in the making. indeed, not one cell, but multiple - or was it just one MCS (meso-scale convective system)?

          This was to be yet another afternoon to remember. At around 4:15pm, the sky unleashed it's first bolt, directly overhead. It came as a shock to many who weren't aware what was happening above them. To begin with (apart from the initial fork) the thunder continuously rolled in from the distance, and lightning quickly became more and more apparent. I've never seen such threatening skies and menacing clouds in this area. By 4:45pm the rate of lightning was absurd for this country - my estimate is around 100 strikes per minute, Awesome!!!! ~ Generally in the area 3 to 10 miles N to NE of this site. Such lightning rates are virtually unheard of in the UK. This sensational peak didn't last long though (10 to 15 minutes), and it gradually changed down to a minute storm (1 strike / minute). Lightning came in all forms; fork (cloud to ground), intra-cloud, and cloud to cloud. However, I've still not managed to witness the elusive and much fabled ball lightning though.

          In one hour from 4:30pm, the air temperature plummeted a massive 9ºC. Satellite and radar imagery show that the cell covered most of the central belt, with Sferic images showing a huge concentration of unleashed electricity in North Lanarkshire. At my site, we never received a great deal of rain (around 9mm in total). But other local towns reported large hail (Bellshill) and over one inch of rain (in Carluke). There were four or five discharges within a mile; the acoustics of close lightning strikes always fascinate me - more akin to an explosion than a rumble of thunder. Not long after 6pm, the storm moved on and the clouds began to break.

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Near misses of 2006

    Firstly, on May 4th. Around 8pm a band of thundery weather made its way through the central lowlands, centred to the west of Wishaw. The storms lasted for the next 3 hours and ravaged parts of Glasgow and it's suburbs. Lightning rates were again very high with spectacular forks every other second for a sustained period. Because it coincided with the onset of nightfall, the lightning was all the more vivid. And a times had a pink hue from my vantage point. Flash floods were seen in some local areas. Particularly in the northern suburbs of Glasgow. As far as Wishaw was concerned, this was a near miss, but exciting light show. At the time I was on the phone to my partner Andy who, excitedly from the doors of a pub in Glasgow city centre, described how the city was being demented with thunder and lightning and how the train service - his means home - was interrupted by flooding.

The first week of July was notably thundery also, with cells passing overhead on a few mornings. None very spectacular though. The afternoon of the 5th was very warm and humid and some major storms developed over the southern uplands and moved into the eastern half of the central lowlands. Impressive skies looking South and east from Wishaw, but no cigar here apart from a short burst of torrential rain and the odd distant rumble.

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A pub quiz rainstorm  3rd July, 2008

Four weeks earlier on the 5th June, I was doing my usual Thursday night thing. Which generally involves rushing home from work in order to make it on time for a quiz night at a bar in Wishaw. On that occasion my attention was distracted somewhat by a Thunderstorm rumbling away outside, the lightning was all sheet and it was still daylight, so no great show. Exactly 4 weeks later, same location but more fierce results.

Firstly have a look at the picture I took on my mobile phone, from the door step of the Commercial hotel in Wishaw, looking down Marshall street. It was taken about 10 minutes before the storm kicked off - behold the gathering storm!

The lightning came hard and fast just before 9.30pm. All of it blinding forks striking various parts of Wishaw. This continued for 10 minutes, and I was rather enthralled watching from my vantage point beneath the awnings of the Commercial hotel. It then started to rain, well - for a few seconds - and then what can only be described as the ocean emptying above our heads commenced. Me and my friend Andrea cowered beneath the awning as the rain tore down... The 3 meter dash to the entrance of the bar seemed a mile away, and in the brief second or two it would take us to reach the shelter of the pub we would clearly get utterly soaked. Flash, bang - gee that was close!

 Now the rain is as heavy as any rainstorm I've ever witnessed - echoes of 1995 indeed. I'm in virtually the same place! One minute after the rain had started the air was already filled with spray. Along comes a freak gust of wind and pours the contents of the awning right on top of me, Andrea and some other unlucky fella. Ok, time to go indoors now lol! Drenched! A couple of minutes to compose myself and then back to the door with another fellow quiz team member; Mark... And wow, Wishaw main street river has returned with a vengeance. And it's running right past the door of the bar - we're stuck. And even at the door we're getting soaked again from the spray. Let's head back in and tell the others. FLASH/BANG (Mark scream's lol)- I think that was damn close, the new TESCO building probably. 150 meters away. Get me a drink!

A few moments later, the river is in full spate, my fellow quiz team members are having a paper boat race at the door of the bar :-) But the quiz is about to start and the rain seems to be passed it's worst. Back to our table we go. I'm watching out the window for a while at the occasional bright flashes from outside, not really concentrating on the quiz. It's still a river outside and down the road. Next thing two fellow members of the quiz team arrive, oh dear oh dear. They look like they've just gone for a swim fully clothed. Not one piece of them is remotely dry. Clothes weigh a tonne. Nikki and Alan had decided to walk it to the pub from Coltness and had got caught in the height of the storm. The rain had came on so fast and heavy there was no point in them heading for shelter on route.

A mile further north at my site, I was shocked to discover later that only 6mm of rain had fallen into the gauge. Clearly it was a small, but nasty cell. I'd estimate in central Wishaw half an inch of rain (12.5mm) fell in little over 20 minutes. Glasgow road was cut off by a flash flood right outside Chapmans butcher shop, well actually it was flooded inside too, as were the other businesses beside it. (You can see this area on the picture above to the right hand side). Stupidly I never took any photo's of the aftermath Duh! Netherton in Wishaw was completely cut off for some time by the flash floods, no roads in were passable. And many a drain had popped during the storm due to pressure from the sheer volume of water below, an added hazard for drivers.

The storm headed off into the night as darkness fell...And me and my fellow team-mates; we won the quiz that night and thoroughly enjoyed the £50 drink voucher. ;-)

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Of course there have been other storms here besides, but none quite match up to some of those above. Those were foreigners, not supposed to happen in this country. Roll on the next occasion; nothing quite matches the majesty of a severe and close thunderstorm.