When will there be a storm in South East England? London, Kent, Essex
Check the storm for your town →
Recently added — storms
- Storms in Europe — radar, alerts and what to do
- Storms in the Italian Alps — why they arrive so suddenly
- Hail during Alpine storms — how often it falls and why it is dangerous
- Storm alerts in Croatia — will they reach a tourist, and where to shelter
- Sudden storms and downpours in France — the regions hit most often
Current storm situation in South East England
The map below shows near-real-time precipitation and lightning radar.
Storm radar — South East England
By default you see the precipitation radar together with real-time lightning strikes — one combined Windy layer. Switch to wind or to the warnings layer to see whether an official warning is in effect for this region.
To check exactly what time a storm cell will reach London, Kent, Essex or another town in the region, use this site's storm tool, based on the ICON-D2 model.
Why the South East gets more storms than the rest of the UK
South East England is the part of Britain closest to continental Europe, and that geography matters more than almost anything else for its storm climate. When warm, humid air pushes up from France or the Low Countries — a pattern forecasters call a "plume" event — it collides with cooler Atlantic air over southern England, and the result is often a line of intense, slow-moving thunderstorms that can dump 30 to 50mm of rain in under an hour.
London's dense urban surface adds another factor: concrete and tarmac heat up faster than surrounding countryside, occasionally intensifying storms as they cross the city and increasing the risk of surface water flooding on roads and in underpasses that weren't designed for tropical-style rainfall rates. Kent and Essex, being more rural and closer to the coast, sometimes see storms develop slightly earlier in the day than inner London, as sea-breeze convergence adds extra lift to the warm air.
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What a thunderstorm is and how to read the signal strength
What a thunderstorm is and how to read its strength
A thunderstorm forms when warm, moist air near the ground rises quickly and meets much colder air higher up. That motion (convection) builds a storm cloud (cumulonimbus) — sometimes over ten kilometres tall. Inside it, water droplets and ice crystals collide and build up an electrical charge, which eventually discharges as lightning.
A storm needs three things at once: moisture in the lower atmosphere, instability (a large temperature difference between the ground and higher up), and some trigger for the air to start rising — a weather front, ground heated hard on a hot day, or mountains forcing air upward.
How to read the storm-signal strength
Weather models (like ICON-D2, used on this site) do not "see" lightning directly — they calculate a Lightning Potential Index (LPI) from the physics of the cloud: how much ice and supercooled water is rising, how strong the updraft is. Rainfall and convective energy (CAPE) are added on top — together they give one index from 0–100%.
- 0–20% — calm, no real storm signal.
- 20–30% — weak signal, a passing shower is possible, a storm is unlikely.
- 30–45% — a real chance of a storm, worth tracking as it develops.
- 45%+ — a strong signal, a storm with a high chance of lightning.
This is a model forecast, not a radar reading — it shows what the model expects a few hours ahead, not what is happening right now. For the current situation, always check radar too (e.g. in this site's storm tool) and official warnings.
Wind and weather — Europe
Wind direction and speed decide which way a fire runs. Switch the layer to temperature or humidity to judge the risk.
Strong wind, temperatures above 35 °C and humidity below 30% together are the conditions in which fire spreads fastest.
Met Office warnings for the South East
Weather warnings — South East England
This site shows a model forecast and does not replace official warnings. If Met Office has issued a warning for your region, that is what counts — not our forecast.
Check warnings: Met Office ↗ · MeteoAlarm — warnings for all of Europe ↗
During a thunderstorm warning for London or the South East, avoid driving through flooded underpasses — several are known flood spots that fill within minutes during intense downpours, and water depth is very hard to judge from a car.
See also
See also: the Midlands · Scotland · the UK storm alert
All storm pages
- Storms in Europe — radar, alerts and what to do
- Storms in the Italian Alps — why they arrive so suddenly
- Hail during Alpine storms — how often it falls and why it is dangerous
- Storm alerts in Croatia — will they reach a tourist, and where to shelter
- Sudden storms and downpours in France — the regions hit most often
- Storms in Croatia and local flooding — Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar
- Storms in France: Paris, Marseille, Nice and lightning protection
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