Thunderstorms. What thunderstorms?

It's about 11.30 am BST as I type this and by now we should have had some intense downpours of rain and thunder and lightning. We had a sprinkling of rain much earlier but now it is just cloudy and humid. So what about the talk of flash floods and the rest. Well if you are living in parts of Ireland, particularly Dublin, then the dire warnings from the Met office would have proved very relevant as they have been swamped by bad weather. But, so far, nothing of note here.

In fairness to the forecasters the present weather set up is just ripe for tropical deluges: we have had this very humid tropical air off the continent for a few days so conducive to a thundery breakdown but it is the potential clash between this heat and the much cooler maritime air advancing from the west as a front comes in off the Atlantic that should be producing intense thundery outbreaks of rain. I have sympathy for the Met Office because these thunderstorms can be very localised - they have to broadcast a worst case scenario even though many places may not be affected.

Although the scenery is very striking here I live well down in the valley and it feels like being near the bottom of a ravine sometimes so precipitous are the valley sides. One result of this is that it's difficult to know what the weather is doing outside this immediate locality. All things considered though I wouldn't swap this spot for another to live in.

It is now just starting to rain but gently. Maybe a tropical downpour is still to come.

LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
Still cloudy here but reports in of very heavy rain and localised flooding in Truro and Mid Cornwall areas. Evidently then the Atlantic front has been dragging its heels a bit.