Storm chaser captures drone footage of Antrim thunderstorms
Northern Ireland witnessed dramatic thunderstorm activity on Thursday afternoon, and amateur astronomer, storm chaser, and photographer Martin McKenna of Night Sky Hunter was on hand to capture the striking scenes.
Heavy scattered showers brought thundery downpours and lightning across Leinster and Ulster. One cloud-to-ground strike was recorded in Balbriggan in north County Dublin earlier in the day, while lightning was also reported off the Wicklow and Antrim coasts, and in counties Laois, Kilkenny, Wexford, and Kildare.
In County Antrim, McKenna documented a particularly vivid storm cell around Slemish Hill and the village of Portglenone.
Speaking on his YouTube channel about the early autumn chase in the northeast, he said, “Never had much expectations for this because of lack of shear and almost didn’t chase, but went anyway. Met Colleen Webb at Portglenone, beautiful low-level rainbow with blue-green algae over the River Bann. Big cell went up so we gave chase east to Ballymena and Broughshane.”
He added, “Cell base was rotating during the entire drive for half an hour. We arrived at Slemish to a beautiful sight, this cell slowly rotating over the lush fields with base and core separated, several tall updraughts, striations, and various scud lowerings rotating with a big lowering at the end wrapping up at low and mid levels. Amazingly best structure I’ve seen since the July Sligo storms. A very unexpected treat this day!”
Meanwhile, a cloud to ground lightning strike was recorded near Newtownards, Co Down, on Sunday afternoon. A number of lightning strikes were recorded off the north Antrim coastline as thundery outbreaks pushed northeast.
