 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
At last the weather had become interesting, unsettled, and photogenic over N. Ireland. For those living in central northern Ireland such as myself. it will come as no surprise that May was the driest place in the UK this year. It barely rained at all and as a consequence gardens dried up dominated by a canopy of orange grass, and ALL of the man made large ponds in Drumlamph forest where void of water. I was able to walk through the bed of these ponds, on ground which was caked and cracked by the heat. It looked more like the Arizona desert than N. Ireland. The dry weather and clear skies produced an abundance of solar heating but the lack of moisture and other ingredients never presented themselves in order to get good convection. In fact, I have not seen a true cumulonimbus cell here in a long time which is very unusual.
June 17th marked a time of change. A large and quite intense frontal system swept in country-wide from the Atlantic Ocean and done its thing. I couldn't believe it...rain!, and not just drizzle either. I normally find people to be negative about rain, however this has got to be the first time I have heard everyone say that they were glad to see it. It was even exciting. The front itself was quite nasty. It produced long duration torrential downpours at a steady rate all afternoon accompanied by good convection in the form of low level very dark cumulus congestus and Cb cells. I even thought I was going to get a tornado at one stage, a thought which was shared by one of my astronomical friends 40 miles away on the same day. We ended up getting more rain over a few hours than we did over the last 1.5 months. It was quite a shock. This theme continued through the day and by early evening a possible squall line passed over delivering yet more torrential rain. I checked the radar and was amazed. N. Ireland was completely covered in extremely heavy showers, all of them blue and green but a rich number showing up as red. These red cells were the ones that hit my location. I haven't seen such a dramatic radar view here for months. It amazed me that no thunderstorms fired off. Someone on another weather forum commented on this and said the rainfall in N. Ireland ''looked ridiculous''.
I was observing these torrential downpours with much interest and kept an eye on those well defined bases incase anything dropped out for a brief but violent visit. A clearance appeared in the late afternoon and I could see several very large anvils embedded within the frontal cloud. These looked quite powerful with obvious strong inflow. Scud fragments where getting sucked into the inflow area at a high rate. I took some images and video of this at the time although they are not good enough to add to this account. By 20.00 BST the entire front cleared away leaving a lovely crisp blue sky. This was the post frontal air mass, a place which I like to watch. This airmass is usually unstable enough to produce some interesting convection. With more heavy showers on radar heading my way I figured I would have a good chance of catching a few anvils or a mammatus display, if I was very lucky. With the lowering Sun this could be a nice photo opp. So during the late evening, 1.5 hours before sunset, I decided that I would take my dog for a walk through the Maghera countryside. I was also taking my camera for a walk to...
 |
I was only out a few min's when those showers on radar arrived. They arrived from the NW (L). This is looking N and taken from the Crewe Road near the junction to the Coleraine road. Nice line of convection moving slowly in from L to R. The R side is tilted in an obvious fashion. Heavy late evening showers falling from the L.
 |
Retreating.
 |
Beautiful primary and secondary bows over the Crewe Road. N section. Precip still falling in this area to.
 |
Mid section. This was quite a heavy shower. Camera lens was completely soaked many times. I had clean it on a regular basis. Look how wet the road looks.
 |
S section.
 |
Panning the camera further to the L facing NW. I have just recently added this bow to the account.
 |
Further out the road now and getting deeper into the country. Looking SE at a nice tilted line of embedded convection. Small farm to the R. System moving R to L.
 |
Looking back towards the W. Strong sunlight breaking through from the NW (R) which lit the underside of this very unstable looking layer with yet more showers arriving in from the L. The lowering Sun is a great time to catch gorgeous colours on clouds. These images are not colour enhanced in any way.
 |
Facing directly N at a very large retreating cell which has just broke out from the frontal cloud. That grey mid level stuff is 'velum' which can often be seen near convection. Long curtain of small hail is present from centre to L.
 |
This was the most spectacular double bow of the evening. It looked brighter and more colourful with the naked eye than it does here. Looking E. I was standing on the side of the road trying to take shelter under a tall hedge. I still ended up getting soaked.
 |
Looking NE at the L hand side of the bows.
Here's a short video clip I took of the bows. Near the end you can see some mammatus.
 |
This was a beast!. Looking NW at the mid to S section of a huge cumulonimbus cell which was moving L to R. Substantial precip came form its core.
The best was yet to come. This was one of several convective cells moving towards me producing more showers and the first indication of a mammatus display forming. More on page two.
PAGE 2 > |
Martin McKenna