Weather photo contest

Celsius’ weather observations 300 years

Uppsala has one of the world’s longest series of weather observations. The observations date back to 12 January 1722 when Anders Celsius and his professor Erik Burman started the observations. In 2022, Uppsala University will thereforw host different events celebrating 300 years of weather measurements in Uppsala.
Read more about the Celsius jubilee 2022.

cell phone at dusk

Weather photo contest

Take part in our weather photo contest which will run during the Celsius jubilee year 2022. You can submit up to ten images, either by sending your photo to kommunikator@geo.uu.se or by posting to Instagram and using the hashtag #Celsius300. We will pick one winner each month and the jury consists of metorologists at the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala University.

The best weather photos will be published on the Department of Earth Sciences website with the photographer’s name and a description of the weather phenomena visible in the photo, written by the meteorologists at the department. The winning images will be published in a calendar by Uppsala University. The winners will also receive an Uppsala University hoodie, value SEK 450.

Rules

The contest is open for everyone between 1 November 2021 to 30 November 2022.
The photo must be taken by you.
You can submit up to 10 photos.
Write where the picture was taken and approximate date and time.
Remember to write your name and where we can contact you.
If you post and tag on Instagram your Instagram account must be open, not private.

By using the hashtag #Celsius300 you give your approval for us to publish the pictures in our internal and external channels. If you photograph people you must have their consent.

Winner, November 2021: Felicia Eriksson

Jormvattnet, Jämtland, by Felicia Eriksson — The night sky in August can be incredibly beautiful! High up in the atmosphere – way higher than where the regular clouds are located – we find the noctilucent clouds. And it's the fact that they are at this high altitude that makes it possible for us to see the clouds in twilight – when the sun has set for us at the surface it is still shining on these clouds, approximately 80 km up. Just like the stars, the noctilucent clouds are above us also during the day, but it's only in nighttime that the light that they reflect is not dazzled by the direct sun light. The clouds are formed by the deposition of tiny ice crystals on the dust from meteorites; the ice crystals make the cloud shimmering in blue and white. Most often, the clouds are in a striped pattern, just like in this beautiful photo from Jormvattnet in Jämtland (Sweden), taken August 10th at 23.38.

Winner, December 2021: Magdalena Kuchler

Stratocumulus clouds can be extremely dull or really, really wonderful. This December morning it was hard to stop gazing at the clouds on the way to work; the sky was on fire! Have you ever thought about why the sky is blue during day but looks red in the morning and evening? As you may know, sunbeams contain all colors, but the gases in the atmosphere (mainly nitrogen and oxygen) scatter blue light better than red light. When the sun is high, there is a relatively small amount of air that the sunlight must pass through before it reaches your eye and the sky looks blue. When the sun is low, however, the sun's rays must travel a much longer distance through the air before they reach you.
As blue wavelengths are scattered more efficiently than red ones, we see reddish colors when light has to travel a longer path through the atmosphere; hence the yellow, orange, pink, and red shades of color we see at dawn and dusk.
To see a really cool sky as in this photo, it is also required to be a lot of water vapor or particles in the air as they also help to scatter the sunlight.

Winner, January 2022: Fredrik Gustafsson

a thunderstorm rolling in — We are doomed! Or are we? When the sky looks like this you have two options: either you seek shelter as fast as possible or you take some photos and enjoy the spectacle! On this day, the atmosphere was tumultuous, with thunderstorms passing on regular intervals. In the evening, this cloud passed over Gamla Uppsala; the turbulence and winds within and around the cloud created shelves that could clearly be seen in the setting sun. Amongst meteorologists this cloud is called cumulonimbus arcus praecipitatio, or simply just shelf cloud. Regardless how ominous you think it looks, you have to agree that this steel-gray sky is something special!

Winner, February 2022: Catherine Ripley

Sweden in the north, covered in snow — The sound of silence. When nature is covered by a soft layer of snow, all sounds are dampened. Snow covering the vegetation in this way is called crown snow-load. Did you know that the weight of the snow on one spruce in Northern Scandinavia can be up to 4 000 kilograms? That’s a lot of weight for the entire forest – you do the calculation!

Winner March 2022, Marcus Letalick

Calm sea with clouds in the sky — There is a hurricane blowing over lake Roxen – and at the same time the water surface is almost perfectly flat – how can that be? To answer the question, we look upwards. The clouds are the meteorologist's best friends because they reveal what is happening in different parts of the atmosphere. The elongated feather-like cirrus clouds are high up in the atmosphere; at an altitude of about 10 km. This is the altitude at which air-planes fly and where we also find the jet stream, the band of strong winds that is wrapped around the Earth. Up here, hurricane winds are part of everyday life. The grey-white cumulus clouds are much closer to the ground – at a height of only one or a couple of kilometres – and here the winds are more modest. At the surface there is almost no wind at all; it is so calm that only the tiniest ripples can be seen on the water surface.

Winner, April 2022: Sandro Lohajner

Sun halo — Some weather phenomena are very unusual. Others are actually quite common, although many people think they are unusual. A halo is an example of such a phenomenon that occurs quite often, but you may never have noticed. A large ring around the sun — or halo — can be seen when the sky is covered with high altitude cirrostratus clouds. The ice crystals in the cloud refract the sun beams. If the crystals are symmetrically arranged, various optical phenomena can occur: halos, sun dogs, a circumzenithal arc and light pillars. Often the halo means that a change in the weather is to be expected; a warm front is approaching and tomorrow will be a rainy day.