Convective Outlook: Wed 17 Aug 2022
LOW
SLGT
MDT
HIGH
SVR
What do these risk levels mean?
Convective Outlook

VALID 06:00 UTC Wed 17 Aug 2022 - 05:59 UTC Thu 18 Aug 2022

ISSUED 07:26 UTC Wed 17 Aug 2022

ISSUED BY: Dan

Cut-off upper low lingers over the Bay of Biscay through Wednesday, slowly filling in-situ. At the surface, a warm, humid airmass (dewpoints 15-18C) will be slowly scoured away southeastwards by a cold front, this marking the boundary to somewhat fresher conditions for the remainder of the week.

A rather messy evolution is once again anticipated, with extensive cloud and areas of showery rain, perhaps with embedded thunderstorms, across parts of central and southern Britain first thing on Wednesday morning. With time much of the general precipitation should weaken and decay, with cloud breaks allowing better surface heating across southern England and East Anglia, and potentially yielding 1,000-1,500 J/kg CAPE in places. Scattered heavy showers and a few thunderstorms may develop in response to sea breeze convergence and some upslope flow over the Downs, Dartmoor etc. Broadly east of the Isle of Wight the steering winds will attempt to push showers to the W or NW (ie parellel to the coast or even further inland), while west of the IoW showers/storms should drift offshore. Therefore, although shear is still relatively weak it is arguably stronger across SE England to enable some level of cell organisation, and (like Tuesday afternoon in Norfolk) an isolated supercell may just be possible. Any organised storms would be capable of producing hail perhaps to 2cm in diameter, and to a lesser extent strong gusts of wind. Perhaps of greater concern more widely in southern England and East Anglia is the risk of local flash flooding given slow-moving torrential downpours and potential for back-building, which is the primary reason for issuing a SVR.