Fellow storm enthusiasts had been indicating for several days that there was a possibility for a severe thunderstorm episode on Sunday. The UK Storm Chasers agreed this could be a key day and were delighted when professional forecasters graded the tornado risk as moderate with a possible chance of strong tornadoes. This was confirmed by Estofex’s morning report. We prepared early in the day for what could have been a momentous chase, however hopes were starting to fade when the outlook was downgraded to an optimistic slight risk. An earlier MCS had acted to destabilise the air and the trailing cold front was positioned across the western part of the UK. However the low pressure predicted earlier to move into central southern England which would have created ideal shear profiles was now far too much to the east to spawn severe storms.

During the afternoon the overcast conditions across much of the UK began to lift allowing some much needed surface heating to take place. Surface based storms unfortunately never materialised and we were left to chase three weak elevated storms which entered Hampshire and West Sussex. We intercepted these storms ten miles east of Basingstoke and chased them in torrential rain until they became electrically weak close to Reading. At this point the UK Storm Chasing team made the correct decision to call off the somewhat disappointing chase and return to Winchester. All in all a complicated metrological event was handled very poorly by the computer models and a day with what originally looked like great potential turned out to be a near bust.