|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This looked to be an interesting day for convection. Intense ground heating and a CAPE of over 450 leading forecasters to predict isolated thunderstorms across Ireland and UK. The sferics were active and convective reports where flooding in from many locations. It was a gorgeous Summer-like day here with blue skies and strong Sun which generated convection during the late morning. By early afternoon things were looking good with countless cumulus towers bubbling up with well defined bases. These towers leaned noticeably away from the vertical showing the presence of wind shear so I reckoned the chances of a small funnel cloud could be possible. One tower in particular caught my attention as it matured into the cb stage. Scud fragments below the well defined updraught base began to dance and soon a very shallow wall cloud lowered and began slowly rotating. It looked like it was trying to lower a funnel but despite a long period of observation it never happened. By late afternoon I was loosing faith in the whole set-up. The wind shear from earlier had vanished and the few anvils present were very weak specimens with poor updraughts. In fact, it was almost a complete blue sky. Feeling frustrated I headed home with only a few congestus and cb images which are not worth sharing. What a day though under the hot Sun, I was actually beginning to get a tan!.
During the early evening I got a text from John McConnell from Maghaberry, N. Ireland reporting thunder from his location. He described the culprit cell as massive, dark, and producing hail. Paul Evans from Co. Larne reported an intense hail storm with frozen pea sized stones then I heard reports that a plane had been struck by lightning in Belfast. This was encouraging so I decided to head outside and climb to the top of a large hill for a better view. I was 40 miles away from John but despite this distance I reckoned I may be able to see something given a good horizon. I looked to the east and was amazed to see John's storm from this great distance!. It was quite a monster consisting of several cells merged together with cu towers along the flank and a giant striated anvil. The cell covered the NE to SE compass points. It was an impressive sight. At least I seen something exciting this day.
If only I knew what was to come later. During the late evening before sunset I happened to glance out of my bedroom window towards the east and seen an impressive coloured sky with curious structure. I thought to myself ''that looks like a gust front'', so I walked up the road near Willow Glynn, Maghera and focused my attention to the east. There was a spectacular gust front forming as it slowly traveled towards me from east to west. The low level Sun lit the shelf into a wide range of spectacular colours. I began taking images immediately. Facing east. System moving towards me with growing shelf lit orange by the Sun. location for a better view. It was amazing that we both ran into each other at the same time and place. Conor was as excited as I was.
 |
Taken with wide angle 58mm lens. Facing SE. Shelf getting more organized now. Look above the goal post, you can see the base of a red 'sunset rainbow'. It's more obvious in the image above. Virga is falling from the orange shelf. That's Slieve Gallion to the right almost directly south. Excuse the horrid foreground in these images. This is a developing site where new houses will be built. I hate the sight of the location but one cannot be choosy when there is something exciting happening in the sky.
 |
Facing east and head-on to the shelf. Nice contrasting orange and blue colours. You can see precip falling in the distance. The position of the Sun was slowly lowering and as the gust front drifted further west a whole series of colour effects began to make their play on the structure. Note the red glow above the distant horizon, that's the Sun catching the top of an anvil. Heavier precip began to fall although it still looks like virga.
 |
Shelf is shaping up nicely. The 'bird' can be seen further to the left now.
 |
I was hoping this would happen. I suspected we could get incredible colours on this if the atmospherics worked in our favour. The rain is reaching the ground now and nice linear features have appeared under the shelf.
 |
Vertical capture.
 |
Conor giving his approval and a thumbs up for the shelf. It was quite a sight now.
 |
Wonderful!. Subtle Whale's Mouth structure visible under the shelf.
 |
Beginning to loose the Sun now.
 |
Now the sky is getting dark and the first drops of rain are falling. This was a big structure. Facing north now at the other side of the gust front. The curved edge is obvious now. The semi circle shape of the gust front is striking with a heavy core of rain falling to the right. It's moving R to L here.
 |
Sky getting very dark now. Rain core is getting much more serious. The temp dropped sharply and the cool out-flow air was an unpleasant sensation. I had a feeling things were going to get nasty.
The rain turned heavy then within a few minutes it was torrential. I was soaked to the skin in a few minutes. Then a nasty hail storm began, this was extremely heavy and of high speed. I was aware of a strange sensation above my head and I had that horrible and vulnerable feeling one gets when a lightning strike was imminent. I ran down to lower ground to make myself a more difficult target. The hail storm turned the area into hell. I was absolutely freezing, the hail didn't stop for 15 min's or more. During its most intense phase the sky turned pitch black in the north. Suddenly a dark evil lowering emerged from the hail curtains and dropped into view. It was a big substantial looking feature which actually scared me a little. It looked like a definite funnel forming. Content with its quick peak at the Earth below it then silently disappeared back up into the hail and it was gone. It reminded me of footage I had seen on television showing a submarine emerging out of the sea. Only slow the scene down and flip the image upside down exchanging the sea for cloud and sky for hail and you get a pretty good idea of what I saw. The hail changed back to rain, the area was flooded and very muddy so I headed home. The show was over but what a show it was!. I have seen quite a number of gust fronts this year however this must rank as the most beautiful to date. It was a successful day after all.
Here's a video I made of the gust front. I have no footage from the earlier stage but I did manage to catch some of the red colour. At the beginning you can hear Conor talking on his mobile, he was describing the scene to his girlfriend who also has an interest in severe weather events. The clip ends with some still images taken from this report. I will not forget this day for a long time. Considering that this is April and the very start of the thunderstorm season in this country, I consider this a good omen of more spectacular sights to come in the near future!
Martin McKenna