We continue to see two main drivers in our weather pattern this week. The large hot dome parked over the heart of the continent while a low continues to spin, stuck in place to the west of Ireland. These two systems will continue to keep things warm, humid and stormy with the front separating low from high pressure staying put. Each and every afternoon, as heat and humidity build north, so the front sparks strong to severe thunderstorms from central France all the way to Poland.

Check out this morning’s infrared imagery showing not one but three large thunderstorm complexes, also known as MCS’s or Mesoscale Convective Systems. These are large complexes of multiple thunderstorms which blow up and continue through the overnight along boundaries.

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These large scale, powerful systems are big lightning, hail, wind and rain producers. Apparently the system over N France has generated over 800 lightning strikes within the last 30 mins.

Here’s a great graphic from AccuWeather which illustrates the situation perfectly.

Because of the warm, humid air holding in place with the front overhead, the SEVERE THUNDERSTORM risk remains very high from central France up through the Low Countries into Germany.

The French meteorological organisation has now issued a level 3 alert for severe thunderstorms this afternoon and evening and high heat (low 30s C), humidity and the front, trigger additional supercell thunderstorms.

Large, damaging hail struck areas in and around Paris last night and today we’re likely to see more.

The rest of this week looks to remain warmer than average across much of the continent but the new day 7-14, shows most areas going slightly below average.

No video today but will have one tomorrow.

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