October 22nd: Lightning Over Portsmouth, Hants

This was quite an unusual event for this area, with a band of instability moving up from the English Channel just after sunset. The first band of storms missed my location just to the west, with some frequent lightning and flooding in the Bournemouth area. The New Forest did have a brief storm and a few minutes of light rain, but most activity was developing to the east of my location, so it was clear I was going to have to drive that way to intercept. Frustratingly, the storms were moving away from me quickly and I had reached the Portsmouth area before I got close. Portsdown Hill is a good viewing spot when storms pass the area, but parking spots are limited and the relatively early arrival of the storms meant space was at a premium. The rain was persistent and light making photography almost impossible. It was frustrating to say the least, but I managed a few hand-held shots:

This cg hit less than half a mile away, so it over-exposed unfortunately: