Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year 2024: And the winners are...
The judges have picked their favourites, thousands of you cast your votes and at last we can announce the results. Here are the winning weather and climate photographs for 2024.
MAIN CATEGORY
3rd Place: Evening Shower Over the Needles by Jamie Russell
Although rainbows are a common optical phenomenon, the correct ingredients need to come together to see one. Firstly, the sun must be behind you, and it must be low in the sky. Secondly, an array of airborne water droplets must be ahead of you. When light travels through a water droplet, it slows down and changes direction because a water droplet is denser than air — this is known as refraction. The amount that light is refracted depends on its colour, which is why sunlight (consisting of a mix of all colours) is split into the rainbow spectrum when it is refracted. This spreading of the light into the different colours is called dispersion. When the light reaches the back of the water droplet, it is reflected and passes back through the droplet, again being refracted and further dispersed as it leaves the droplet.
Photographer Jamie Russell sent up a drone to capture this impressive image of two British icons: the white chalk stacks of The Needles and a downpour! To top it off, the Isle of Wight is perfectly crowned with a rainbow.
2nd Place: Hoarfrost Heaven by Andy Gray
In Old English, the word ‘hoar’ is related to old-age, and so this frost gets its name from its resemblance to white hair. Hoar frost differs from ground frost because it occurs when the surface is already below freezing. The water vapour immediately freezes on contact with the object rather than first condensing as liquid water and then freezing. Photographer Andy Gray was especially pleased to have captured this image as he feels hoar frost has become rarer in the Peak District.
This spectacular shot was taken during a period of high pressure which led to particularly cold weather. Within high pressure systems (or anticyclones), air is generally sinking which leads to cloudless skies. At night, the lack of clouds means that more heat is lost to space, rather than being reflected back to the Earth’s surface. Winter nights can become very cold, encouraging the formation of frost and mist which can last well after the sun has risen.
Winner: Sprites Dancing in the Dark Night by Wang Xin
Photographer Wang Xin had to be extremely patient to capture this magnificent example of red sprite lightning in the Chongming District of Shanghai. Much like the ethereal, fairy-like sprites of folklore, fleeting red sprites are particularly difficult to see or photograph. Sprites occur due to electrical discharge, but unlike ordinary lightning, they occur well above cumulonimbus clouds, approximately 50 miles (80km) above the ground, in a layer of the atmosphere known as the mesosphere.
Sprites occur due to electrical discharge, but unlike ordinary lightning, they occur well above cumulonimbus clouds, approximately 50 miles (80km) above the ground, in a layer of the atmosphere known as the mesosphere. Due to their fleeting nature, sprites are still not well understood, but they have been observed to occur after a strong, positive lightning bolt between the cloud and ground. The red colour comes from changes in the energy of the electrons of nitrogen atoms high in the atmosphere.
SMARTPHONE CATEGORY
3rd Place: Circular Rainbow by Peter Reinold
Photographer Peter Reinold held his camera phone steady through a turbulent landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to capture this complete circular rainbow. Most of the time we don't get to see the full circle of a rainbow because the ground gets in the way, but a rainbow’s shape is actually a circle centred on the point directly opposite the sun from you. If you can get to a higher vantage point with water droplets below, you are more likely to see the complete rainbow. While a plane is an obvious location, sometimes you can also see circular rainbows from the top of tall buildings.
2nd Place: African Dust Over Athens by Lesley Hellgeth
Strong southerly winds transported Saharan dust from northern Africa to Greece in April 2023, giving the Parthenon an eerie orange glow. As well as dust, the southerly winds brought high temperatures, affected the air quality and contributed to a much earlier start to the fire season in southern Greece.
Looking at Sarahan dust outbreak trends over the past few decades, there is evidence that the number, intensity and length of these outbreaks are increasing. Temperature increases in the Mediterranean and persistent drought in northwest Africa are among the reasons for an increase in dust outbreaks.
Winner: Volcanoes by Nur Syaireen Natasya Binti Azaharin
A small pyrocumulus cloud (also known as flammagenitus) sits atop Mount Semeru (central peak in the background) as small plumes of smoke and steam are emitted from the crater of Mount Bromo (front left). Pyrocumulus clouds not only form above volcanoes, but above heat sources such as forest fires and power station cooling towers. Once air has risen to a cool enough altitude, moisture will condense to form a cloud.
Volcanoes emit small particles into the air which provide additional surfaces onto which the water vapour can condense. And if the heat source is large enough, deep rising currents of air may form, allowing the pyrocumulus to evolve into a pyrocumulonimbus which, like a cumulonimbus cloud, may be associated with thunder and lightning.
YOUNG CATEGORY
3rd Place: Fire and Ice by Lincoln Wheelwright
Thunderstorms frequently strike late afternoon or early evening, as it tends to be the warmest and most humid time of day. Warm and moist air at the surface creates an unstable atmosphere, forming a deep cumulonimbus or thundercloud once air starts to rise. In some cases, the atmosphere becomes so unstable that the air rises without an outside trigger, but sometimes air lifted over a mountain or over a cooler, denser air mass triggers the storm.
Texas has an abundant supply of warm, moist air, thanks to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the south. The Gulf of Mexico is warming rapidly due to climate change, boosting the supply of moist air and raising the potential of intense storms in the region.
2nd Place: Saturated Earth and Sky’s Promise by Ellis Skelton
This panoramic image of Cuckmere Valley in East Sussex seems to contain two seasons: summer on the left and autumn on the right, with the flooding on the ground a reminder of the misery the sky can bring. Sea levels are predicted to rise along the Sussex coastline, potentially by over a metre by the end of this century. And as the Cuckmere River flows into the English Channel, those sea-level rises increase the likelihood of flooding in the Cuckmere Valley.
The flood risk increases further thanks to changing river management techniques over the course of several centuries which have led to a build-up of shingle at the river mouth.
Winner: Rain Aria by Angelina Widmann
Young photographer Angelina Widmann captured this stunning shot during a rather wet open-air performance of Madame Butterfly on the eastern shore of Bodensee (also known as Lake Constance) in Bregenz, Austria. Bregenz is one of the wettest spots due to its proximity to the mountains, receiving over 1600mm of rainfall per year. In the summer, monthly rainfall amounts can reach 200mm in Bregenz, most likely associated with summertime convection enhanced by moist air from the lake being lifted by the mountainous terrain
As the atmosphere warms due to greenhouse gas emissions, the amount of water vapour in the air also increases. Additional water vapour means that when it rains, it pours. A change to more intense rainfall has already been observed in Europe and across the world.
STANDARD CHARTERED CLIMATE AWARD and PUBLIC FAVOURITE
Winner: Rowing by Gerson Turelly
This powerful image is the winner of both the inaugural climate award and the public vote. During the devastating Rio Grande do Sul floods in spring 2024, local photographer Gerson Turelly captured this young man paddling his kayak towards the worst affected areas of Porto Alegre, Brazil, to help rescue stranded people.
Looking at the most intense ten-day period during this event, World Weather Attribution showed that climate change made the flooding at least twice as likely, and six to nine per cent more intense. The El Niño Southern Oscillation was also shown to play a large role in increasing the likelihood and intensity of this event, demonstrating how natural variability of the ocean and atmosphere can combine with climate change to produce particularly extreme events.
Until this event, Porto Alegre had generally been spared from significant flooding, meaning that maintenance of its flood defences had been neglected. Urban sprawl into flood-prone areas had also increased vulnerability. This event acts as a reminder that, under climate change, extreme events will occur in new places or with greater intensity or higher frequency than before. Communities must adapt and increase their resilience to avoid disaster.
