July 7th 2011, a friend and I spent an hour and a half standing in this beautiful field with the sun burning the back of our necks as we watched the evolution of a very nice 'dry cell' which did its best to flirt and tease us with promises of thunder and funnel clouds which it never produced, however it was far from disappointing as the cell looked beautiful as it transformed through a wide spectrum of shapes and heights like a Calvus multicell which refused point black to produce any precip it all. The cell was mainly a collection of explosive updraughts which regularly came into view when they erupted high enough to appear from behind the fragments of mid level cloud playing peek a boo. At any one time there where 3 or 4 tall towers with expanding mushroom-shaped heads with brief pileus caps then the main tower would weaken and drop while a new tower exploded up from the rear of the cell to become the main attraction and this cyclic process would continue for the entire time we watched. The cell was so slow moving that we just stayed in this one field watching and daring it to produce a cold air vortex. A rumble of thunder boomed behind us over the Sperrins as more cells arrived, this time with anvils, however we paid them little heed because we felt devoted to this young cell in front of us and didn't want to be unfaithful since we had spent so much time with it on this glorious sunny convective morning. The above image is looking N, at one stage the base was over those fields with tower tops directly overhead so this was very big, however it was a considerable distance away when I took this image because it was the only time I could fit it in the frame with any foreground so keep in mind that those towers were much taller than they appear here and all were expanding in an impressive manner, read the report for more information. * All images are available for sale in the form of photo prints, canvas or digital files for licensing, if you are interested in a purchase simply drop me an email.