Sept 11/13 Torn-Warned Cells in Middlesex

[Itchy]

(I apologize for the dark Images, I did not realize flickr reduces image quality until now. The noise created by their web-site's size reduction techniques is really bad.)

This storm chase shows the second and third wave of thunderstorm activity in London and surrounding area. I watched the first cell with no camera, it was very small but had some strong motions from the RFD.



The second cell I had time to grab my camera and head to its southern tip.



Much stronger storm with a very prominent RFD cutting into the cell creating some great motions!








When the motions were really crazy, was thinking a funnel may form.



A shelf began to form to the right of where I was facing for these shots signaling the storm was ready to start blasting ESE.




I decided to reposition and go underneath the area that the RFD pushed the backside along, the cell cranked up for a moment around this time.



The RFD kicked up a ton of dirt, the winds were strong enough I had to lean in for the shots.






Noticed a new cell cells popping to the west so I let this one go repositioning to take some shots of the backside.



Hail dropping




The updraft and cap








Now after this cell the beginning of the huge system that affected the area began to sprout. This image is around the time I started pictures of the base of the cell, not the first updraft shot pictured.




Looking west, the updraft with inflow from the south feeding in.




As I arrived there was a nice inflow tail at mid level and lowering where it fed into the cell. This was an HP style supercell so I was focusing on the SE side ahead of the southern tip. There was some rotation going on here, very thick haze made photography difficult.








The motions were pretty crazy in one small area, decent rotation too!









Getting really dark, I repositioned as it started to shelf out and combine with the mess behind it.






The images are brighter now than it really was, the camera really pulled its weight.



Crazy motions on the clouds edging this downburst





I am now south of London surrounded by cg's. Some cells pop up ahead of the mess with a lot of lightning in the light rain core despite the small size.



Looking at the smaller cells ahead of the huge mass, this area showed some rotation.



After this was constant lightning as I headed home, I was worried about the possibility of a flash flood on a small country road. The rain was rather intense, I avoided the worst areas of the core so I cannot describe the hail.