Warm weather could finally hit Aylesbury Vale predicts expert forecaster

Fast-moving thunderstorms ripped through the Aylesbury vale last week, packing a punch with torrential downpours as well as hail thrown into the mix. Roads quickly turned into rivers where these rumbling giants tracked, whilst some parts of the Vale remained dry and sunny, highlighting the localised nature of these storms.

In addition to thunderstorms, funnel clouds were also widely seen across Bucks, Beds and Herts.

Funnel clouds protrude from the base of cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds, as a sign of turbulence in the atmosphere. Wind shear – the change of wind direction with height – whips up the air into rotation, allowing these funnels to form. If the wind shear is great enough, and there is enough

energy to do so, funnels can continue growing and rotating until they touch down to the ground, transitioning into tornadoes.

There were numerous sightings of funnels last Thursday (11 May) between Aylesbury, Dunstable and Milton Keynes. Fortunately – or unfortunately, for those of you who love dramatic weather – none of these funnels resulted in a tornado report.

Over in East Anglia, however, a funnel cloud was lucky enough to develop into a small, weak tornado at an industrial airfield near Eye, Suffolk, flinging

objects around the yard for a few brief, yet terrifying, seconds.

What is in store over the coming days, and will we see any warm spring sunshine? Showers look likely to start, but with high pressure building we will see the return of more settled conditions.

Turning warm through the weekend, with a chance of the somewhat elusive 20C mark being reached in places.