>>>>>I don't remember any other August here where the temps fluctuated so wildly in August:
>>>>
>>>>As opposed to "...any other August here where the temps fluctuated so wildly in March"?: :-)
>>>>
>>>>Obviously you've never been in GB during August (or any other month for that matter!) :-)
>>>
>>>+30 here today. Sky were clear until an hour ago. Weather warning is up as a cold air mass from the west is passing over the warm air. Thunderstorms, large hail and tornados are a possibilty, but usually they do not occur in this area . . . well, except for the F5 about 19 years ago.
>>
>>UK receives more tornadoes per year than kansas.
>
>Got a link to support that?
>
>My sister graduated from the University of Oklahoma, which is in Norman, the center of gravity of tornado reports in the US, and the home of the NSSL. I went down for a couple of days in mid-May one year for her convocation. The first evening I was there a front rolled through and several funnel clouds formed. During events like that the local TV broadcasters overlaid a local Doppler radar image in the top right corner of their regular programming. All the locals were VERY experienced at interpreting these images.
>
>Kansas is next door to OK and AFAIK gets its fair share, and more, of fronts and severe weather. I find it hard to believe Blighty would get more. Maybe Bill Kuhn or someone else from Kansas could chime in.
>
>Maybe what happens is that the population density in Kansas is low, so some tornadoes go unreported because they aren't seen or don't damage structures (because there is a low density of structures, too).

They do the same thing here. Whenever there is inclement weather, the doppler image is always in the lower left or upper right of the local channels and emergencies warnings are typically scrolling along the bottom.