Lightning over Britain: the heat breaks into storms — 22 June 2026

Filmed by the Chaseit team on the road this evening, ~19:00 BST, 22 June 2026.

The heat finally bit back. After days of building instability under an exceptional June airmass, the cap broke this afternoon and thunderstorms erupted over the Bristol Channel, Somerset, Wales and the southwest. We were out chasing it — the clip above is straight off the road.

What our tracking saw today

Our live lightning map logged more than 1,800 strikes over the UK on 22 June — and, unlike the national "southern England" headline, our data shows they were overwhelmingly a Bristol Channel and southwest event. The strike centroid sits right over the Bristol Channel near 51.2°N; 73% of every UK strike today fell within 50 km of Bristol, while London, Birmingham, Manchester and the north stayed bone dry.

The activity was sharp and short‑fused, exactly as a heat‑driven convective day tends to be:

• First cells fired mid‑afternoon, around 16:00 BST.
• Peak intensity came in the hour after 17:00 BST, which alone carried over 1,000 strikes — a genuine barrage, not the odd rumble.
• By mid‑evening the storms had decayed and drifted away, last strike logged at 20:49 BST, leaving a warm, humid night behind.

You can watch the cells and targeting on our storm‑targeting panel and follow the rain and lightning together on the live radar.

By the numbers

Figures below are computed from our own systems — our Blitzortung strike feed, our Prism targeting engine and our ground‑station network. You won't find this breakdown anywhere else.

• 1,820 strikes logged over the UK today on our live map.
• 60% of the entire day's lightning fell in a single hour — 1,095 strikes between 17:00 and 18:00 BST.
• Busiest minute: 67 strikes at 17:39 BST. The busiest 10 minutes saw 302 — 30 every minute.
• 73% of all UK strikes fell within 50 km of Bristol. Nearest strike just 3.1 km from the city centre, with direct hits on Oxford (2.3 km) and Swindon (6.3 km).
• Peak instability: CAPE 2,830 J/kg over Bristol at "HIGH" risk on our targeting engine — more than double a typical UK summer storm — with 24 m/s of deep‑layer shear. Our HIGH zone verified exactly where the storms fired.
• Bristol Airport took 53 strikes within 10 km (nearest just 2.0 km) through the evening arrivals — storms parked on the approach.
• 24 mm of rain fell at a station south of Bristol; 43 of 80 stations in the core logged rain — classic narrow, intense convective cores.
• 98% of strikes were confirmed by 15+ sensors — strong, clean cloud‑to‑ground discharges, not noise.
• Detection window 06:12 → 20:49 BST; footprint 258 km × 291 km, centred on the Bristol Channel.

The warnings in effect

The lightning is really a sideshow to the main event — extreme heat. As of tonight the Met Office has:

• Amber extreme‑heat warnings in force across South East England, South West England and Wales, running through Tuesday.
• A Red extreme‑heat warning issued for Wednesday 24 – Thursday 25 June covering the same southern swathe, with June daily temperature records forecast to fall — highs of 37°C, locally 38–40°C.

You can see the live warning picture on our warnings page. Today''s storms are the convective release of exactly that energy: humid, unstable air with dew points pushing 22°C is both what makes the heat feel brutal and what feeds the thunderheads.

What the forecasters are saying

The national picture lines up with what our sensors caught:

• The Met Office flagged that thunderstorms may affect southern and central England this evening, bringing heavy downpours, lightning and gusty winds in highly localised cells.
• The headline remains the heat: a Red Extreme Heat Warning has been issued with June temperature records forecast to break.
• Met Office have also warned of an "urgent" spell of frequent lightning as the unstable air interacts with the heat.

The chase

We ran this one live — eyes on the cells, position called off our own targeting, and the camera rolling as the storm pushed through. Days like today are why the network exists: real instability, real lightning, and a crew already in the field when it goes up.

This post is live — we''ll grow it

The story isn''t over. With a red heat warning locked in for midweek and the atmosphere this loaded, every afternoon between now and Thursday is a thunderstorm candidate as the heat peaks and breaks. We''ll keep adding to this post over the coming days with fresh strike counts, new footage and where the next cells are most likely to fire.

Live log

• Sun 22 Jun, ~22:30 BST — Today''s storms cleared away. 1,820 UK strikes logged, 73% within 50 km of Bristol, peaking with 1,095 strikes in the single hour after 17:00 BST over the Bristol Channel and southwest. Bristol the bullseye; Oxford and Swindon clipped directly. Amber heat warnings active; red warning confirmed for Wed–Thu. First footage and full stat pack posted above. More to follow.
• Tue 23 Jun, ~10:27 BST — UK lightning tally today: 4108 strikes on our live map. Peak hour ~05:00 BST with 927 strikes. Warnings active: amber Extreme heat; red Extreme heat.
• Tue 23 Jun, ~17:14 BST — The heat is rebuilding hard behind the storms: 33°C at Heathrow this afternoon, 32°C at Birmingham and Luton, and low-30s widely across the south and Midlands (obs 15:50 UTC). This is still the prologue — the Met Office red Extreme Heat warning runs 0900 Wed to 2100 Thu (24–25 Jun), with 39°C+ forecast and 40°C in June — never recorded in the UK — on the table. Storms keep firing on the margins: 4,108 UK strikes logged so far today, after 1,820 on the 22nd. No records on the board yet — the peak, and the next breakdown, are still ahead.
• Tue 23 Jun, ~22:40 BST — A tropical night is setting up on the eve of the peak: 28°C still at Heathrow at 22:20 BST, 27°C at Birmingham — barely falling, exactly the no-overnight-relief the red warning flagged (towns and cities staying above 20°C, dew points near 22°C). The storm window has gone quiet this evening, with the UK strike tally holding at 4,108. The Met Office red Extreme Heat warning opens its main window at 0900 Wednesday — this is when 39°C+, and a possible first-ever 40°C in June, come into play.