THUNDERSTORM T0004
Date: Friday 10th May 1997   Time: 14:10 BST
Location: Macclesfield, Cheshire UK
Path: Overhead moving northeast

Synoptics: Unstable Occlusion / Trough
Duration: 1 hour
Type: Multicell
Average lightning type: Cloud-to-Cloud
Average discharge rate: Unknown
Footage Quality: VHS

Here we are, by the 4th storm I had managed to acquire a video camera; a Hi8 HP65 Samsung (slightly better than VHS quality). Rocking this cutting-edge technology, I planted it on the window of my bedroom at the first call of thunder. At first I wasn’t doing very well in terms of where to aim the camera and the storm was also quite weak. However, I got lucky and caught my first streak which was a rather close twin-channelled C-C across the sky. It was about 0.4 miles away (2 seconds between lightning and thunder), but the thunder itself wasn’t very loud, exhibiting the crackly nature of standard low-amp C-Cs. Once I looked back at the footage and saw the streak, I was definitely hooked from that point on and left me wanting to film another one.

The storm continued over the Pennines and dissipated, giving one last sheet flash before falling silent. It had formed along what appeared to be an unstable occluded front, looking at the satellite imagery, or perhaps a trough digging into the back of the occlusion. Either way it was incredibly cloudy with no visibility of open-cell convection. The rear of the cell exhibited what looked like low-level mammatus as shown below.

DUNDEE SATELLITE IMAGES (Credits)
VISIBLE 10.05.1997 13:07
INFRARED 10.05.1997 13:07
COLOUR 10.05.1997 13:07

VISIBLE 10.05.1997 14:48
INFRARED 10.05.1997 14:48
COLOUR 10.05.1997 14:48