.....down at Borth meanwhile a few smaller Cbs
had fired up but the light was dreadful for
photography - too much low-level moisture
about...
|
...here, looking inland from Borth Head, a Cb has
fired up over Plynlimon. You can also see the
edge of the low cloud that had plagued us all
day; out to sea in the opposite direction clearer
skies were present plus further heavy showers
drifting shorewards from the NW. These appeared
to be decaying but a highly turbulent-looking
cloudbase came overhead complete with the
following feature...
|
...I watched this for a while through binoculars
as it passed over. The clouds were definately
swirling and the central protruberance does look
a bit like a funnel cloud. However, while
rotation was visible in the cloud above, the
protruberance could not be seen to be spinning.
My guess is some weird kind of wind-eddy, perhaps
set up by the parent cloud passing in off the sea
and up over Borth Head.
That was it for the 21st....
|
...on the
afternoon of the 22nd I drove to Newtown then
back up past Trefeglwys towards the
Machynlleth-Llanidloes mountain road. Big
cumulonimbus cells had fired like this one,
looking back east...
|
...while straight ahead (and into the sun),
towering altocumulus were shooting upwards at a
rate of knots....
|
...a
good vantage point this, approaching the
Machynlleth-Llanidloes mountain road...
|
...as a
cumulonimbus fired up (with the sun shining
through the anvil) I headed down to Llanidloes
where it caught up with me giving 20 minutes of
heavy sleet and snow...
|
..here's its
rear end as it heads south in the direction of
Rhayader - quite a powerful cell but it didn't
give any thunder. My last view of it showed
distant mamatus forming on the underside of the
anvil, but by then it was getting too dark to
continue: so on to the next (and best) day...
|
...conditions only looked marginally unstable on
the 23rd but once the temperature had risen
enough convection kicked off with gusto after
about 1300z and the sky rapidly filled with the
anvil-tops of cumulonimbus clouds... this is just
outside Machynlleth looking south....
|
...and a bit
further up the road looking north...
|
...looking
south again, but the view north was by now far
more interesting (next few pics)....
|
Here, a rapidly developing clump of hail showers
is affecting the Arans and nearby hills. Sunlight
started to illuminate the falling shafts of
hailstones...
|
...as
the showers developed further the precipitation
intensified...
|
|
...making
fascinating subject material. The whole lot came
over in due course and small hailstones bounced
off the car and road alike. Meanwhile another
hefty Cb was intensifying over Plynlimon and
further new ones were being generated so I headed
down to Llanidloes, then on to Llangurig and west
through the core towards Aberystwyth....
|
|
....by the time I reached Eisteddfa Gurig, having
driven through some much heavier hail with a bit
of snow too, Cbs filled the sky with hardly any
gaps in between, as this pic shows. By the time I
had reached Devil's Bridge 8/8 cloud was the
order of the day: I continued towards Aber and
came out into sunshine only 4 miles from the
coast. The convective weather was now decaying
away as it was getting late into the afternoon
but the higher ground was still white with
hailstones. A good afternoon out getting in
amongst the weather though..... |
|
...and heading back up towards Machynlleth signs
of the coming Spring were everywhere in the
hedgerows, always a cheering sight!
|
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