I have seen a few Sporadic E openings this year on FM with openings mostly to the south towards Iberia and northwest Africa just using the receivers telescopic rod aerial, some of the signals received in stereo and with RDS. So far I have not seen any TV signals on R1 or R2 but I hope to before the end of the sporadic E season.
Interesting mention about lightning static. As a rule of thumb during daylight hours if you hear lightning static on the Long wave band the storms can be up to 500 miles or more distant, on medium wave on the low end the range decreases to 300 miles at the low end to 150 miles at the top end. The range decreases as you go up through the short wave bands. If you start to hear lightning static on the 11m short wave band and into the low VHF bands such as band 1 the storm or storms are in your locality and within 40-50 miles of your location,
Using an App on my smartphone and a portable AM radio I was able to track a line of storms heading up from France. I first noticed strong bursts of static on the top end of medium wave as the line of storm got closer the bursts of static could be heard through the short wave bands and when it reached the 26Mhz or 11m band I could see and hear the approaching storm. After that it was time to run inside and take shelter
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Back in the days of real TV during thundery weather I can remember watching interference free 405 pictures on ITV on VHF band 3 and 625 BBC2 on UHF band 4 but BBC1 which was on 405 band 1 was being badly affected by strong bursts of lightning static. More recently whilst TV dx' ing thundery weather and sporadic E openings would often coincide so you could be watching a strong TV signal on band 1 from Spain with the effects of interference from nearby lightning. To me this was all part of what summer was about.