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It's late Summer and the sky has been very quiet with little to offer in terms of photo potential and the convective season remains the poorest I've ever seen, at this stage I'm not expecting much of a change in that department due to high pressure episodes and hints of cooler interludes from the north Atlantic edging in later. Having said that September has often been a warm month and is well known for it's late season convective surprises for thunderstorms so I'm not ruling something out just yet. However, once we get to late September things do begin to change as the solar heating inland slowly wanes and CAPE values decline.
On one hand the chances of inland convection reduce across parts of N. Ireland however on the other a shift of energy to the coasts takes place where warmer seas and greater moisture is located, sporting strong instability and often becoming the breeding ground for showers, cold fronts and thunderstorms, but these tend to be more prolific over S/SW/W and NW coasts. Late September and even early Autumn can introduce surprises, especially with elevated storms, then later when low pressure begins to dominate with the ever looming presence of the jet stream we can expect strong shear and active cold fronts. Autumn can be a very dynamic time, in UK and Ireland the convective season is present all year round, however one just has to adjust chase locations and strategies and manage expectations accordingly with the season.
Despite the profound lack of convection the Summer as a whole has been fine weather-wise, at the time of writing we have just experienced our third heat wave, it's been fairly dry overall and we have seen our fair share of sunny warm days, nothing to complain about there at all, I'd rather have warm dry HP then grey wet LP anytime during the warm season.
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My attention actually turned from the sky to nature during these lulls, I began to notice interesting trees and flowers and birds, however none of these excited me enough to get the camera out until one warm day I was passing through Lissan House near Cookstown and while walking a trail I spotted a huge butterfly tree with the classic purple flowers. Surrounding this tree was at least fifty butterflies all at once, perched on the flowers in pairs or triplets, all different species, they filled the bush and the sky around it, the scene was absolutely beautiful and cheerful. I didn't even have a DSLR with me which was unusual so all I had was my old phone and I was surprised to get really good images despite the low resolution. I went home with my interest peeked and decided I would go back the next day and get proper images with the camera.
I spent that night researching butterflies and butterfly photography and actually learned a few interesting things about these insects. I informed Colleen Webb about the discovery and she was interested in driving over to get images too so we planned on meeting up the next day. Colleen and I met, normally when we meet the reason would be to chase storms or the aurora, it felt surreal and abnormal to be on a butterfly mission but secretly we where delighted to discover something different which offered new challenges and a different way of thinking with the camera. I considered myself a complete beginner with this kind of photography, I'm used to clouds and stars and landscapes but not this kind of subject so I was mildly excited and so was Colleen.
I guess there are two ways of doing this, get up close and personal with a 50mm lens or macro lens for the most detailed images, or stay back and use a long range lens to zoom in. I opted for the latter option so that what I could keep my distance from the butterflies and hence not scare them away, also the long lens would help throw the background out of focus. I used my 100-400mm lens on the full frame 5D and stopped down. It was a bit of an art form getting images, we had to slowly move into range without making any noise, each step deliberate and muffled, camera motions slow and smooth, even the shutter sound disturbed them, we eventually switched to a silent shutter within the menu. Their presence on the tree was fleeting, we noticed when it clouded over the most photogenic specimens vanished, it seemed they really liked the sunshine. Also a regular breeze stirred the flowers making shooting more challenging, we had to wait for the stalks to settle.
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There were species I had never seen before and I still don't know their names, however the most striking of all were these guys, the 'Peacock butterfly' with it's brilliant orange and red colours split by blacks and yellows, then the stunning 'eyes' on all the wing tips, these were gorgeous, and to see dozens of them at once felt like such a privilege. Occasionally three at a time would be on a flower, there was one unique looking specimen out of all which we christened with a name, he (or she) kept returning and we would whisper his name with delight as we rushed to get images.
This was a fun shoot and despite being stealthy there were times when we would burst out laughing as we stalked a particular butterfly for minutes when suddenly another would just land on our heads out of nowhere and just sit there flapping it's wings making a complete fool out of us, others would land on the hand holding the camera just to mock our quest to get good shots. Colleen got a cool video clip of one of these butterflies landing on my open palm, I might include it in my end of year video for something different. We really enjoyed this day, I came home with 400 images to sort through, I have enough to do an entire website report dedicated to this subject if I wanted so I only included two sample images here. Photography-wise the depth of field still looks too shallow, I was stopped down to F/13 but it wasn't enough, it might just be the fact I'm using an old Canon 100-400mm lens on a more modern full frame body, it works for most things but for subjects like this I probably could do with a more modern telephoto lens.
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The warm dry days continued, Roisin and I went on a day trip to Co. Down to explore, this was mostly new territory for us as it's a place we seldom find ourselves in so we made a day of it and I used the opportunity to get new drone footage. We visited Ballynoe Stone Circles and St. John's Lighthouse where I was delighted to get my first drone footage of this black and yellow lighthouse, the tallest in Ireland at 40m high. We where actually there once before years ago during an ex-hurricane which brought severe winds and big waves to that part of the Co. Down coastline, the storm was Ophelia and still was a Hurricane when it was crossing the Atlantic which was most unusual.
What I enjoyed filming the most was the unexpected, we where visiting the wells area of Downpatrick when I spotted this lovely combine harvester working the fields so I filmed that. It was a fun shoot trying to track the combine over a steeply slanted field with undulations while the drone ducked under power cables which crossed the field in two sections, trying to keep low filming while avoiding these dangers to the drone was demanding but great fun and the scene really captured that essence of late Summer.
Next up was the first proper sky event in some time, the annual Perseid meteor shower, one of the biggest of the year and highly anticipated by many because unlike the majority of other showers it takes place on mid Summer nights which is much more appealing to sky watchers. This year it would peak at 21.30 on the 12th so really the 11th/12th and 12th/13th would be productive nights. However there was one major draw back, there would be a waning full moon all night long, actually it would be three days after full on the 12th and it was that night in which we arranged a watch. Paul Martin, John Fagan and I (with Rhua) met at Lough Fea and amazingly the forecast was for clear skies all night long. We knew the moon would wash out many of the faint meteors and greatly impact any count, however we were not there for the faint ones, we where there for the brighter Perseids and any fireballs which might appear, the moon wouldn't conceal those for us.
The lough was low due to the dry weather so we walked across the rocks and stones close to the water much further than we normally would get. John, Paul and I set up our cameras and already the guys had spotted Perseids from 23.00 onwards, the watch had begun immediately. Rhua sat on a thick blanket on the rocks looking around her while we set up our gear. I began shooting a time lapse with the Canon 5D Mark IV and Tamron 15mm F/2.8 lens. We placed the moon to our backs and concentrated on the sky sectors opposite the moon, specifically the W/NW and N which were darkest. This couldn't have been a more classic Summer meteor shower watch, it might even have been the mildest Perseid watch I can remember in years, at least since the earlier days of 2000 onwards. The night was almost dead calm with a subtle hint of a breeze which kept the flies away, the models showed 20 degrees C until midnight then 15c at 3am, it was also slightly humid. I just wore a light top over my t-shirt and I felt comfortable. We observed sporadic activity within our target areas, fast movers too, Perseids move at 60km/sec so it takes a bright one to show well on camera. I turned my camera to the N/NW as it was showing good activity then a borderline fireball at mag -4.0 to -4.5 came down in the W out of my frame (typical) however Paul bagged it on camera so I was delighted for him.
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John left at 01.30 as he had an early rise in the morning. By 2am Paul and I had a break for a nice mug of tea then Paul surprised me with a frying pan and gas stove, in no time he had cooked us a nice big juicy beef burger in a bap with cheese, I can tell you that burger went down well and gave us a boost of energy for the rest of the night. We continued observing, it was now pre-dawn and the place was absolutely silent, not a sound, the lough was still like a mirror, this was pure magic and worth the night alone. A distant dog barked and it's echo verberated across the lough and seemingly across the land beyond echoing over the hills for miles, it was absolutely surreal, we dared not speak to break the tranquility.
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The Perseids were quiet so we decided to change angles by just walking along the shore to face E/SE. The view was great, the lough was still, Charis House was perched on the dark hill with a few faint warm lights and hints of morning twilight were appearing in the sky. Our attention was now focused on the stunning conjunction between planets Jupiter and Venus only 1 degree apart low in the E within Gemini. To the naked eye they were a splendid sight as two bright silver-white unwinking stars one above the other, as they rose above the outline of the dark trees they were spectacular, clearly the highlight of the night. I grabbed my old crop sensor DSLR and shot a time lapse of the pair with the 50mm lens then I began taking stills with the full frame at 15-30mm. The idea was that Paul and I would stand in the frame for a selfie with the planets, we secretly hoped a Perseid would shoot down near the conjunction but we never seen any activity in that area, however as we stood there for each exposure we did witness a bright Perseid ablate low in the S near the horizon but it looked too far to the right and would be out of frame, a pity.
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It wasn't until I scrolled through the images when I spotted it, the Perseid was in the frame after all right on the edge but it was there!, a good one too, bright and reddened by atmospheric extinction and haze to the point where it was almost gold. Probably negative magnitude to show up that low in the sky and so easily on the image. Here it is, planet conjunction, Perseid, and Paul and I all in the same frame, this was a great memory captured.
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Slight crop, if only we had been looking the other way but our intention was on the planets for the composition, that's me on the right with some motion blur, I likely reacted when I saw the meteor. This was definitely my shot of the night, one keeper from nearly 2000 exposures taken.
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A fleeting glimpse of an exotic dust fragment from an ancient comet called Swift-Tuttle 4.5 billion years old and suddenly vaporizing at sixty times the speed of a bullet and gone forever, but captured on camera. The dust from this encounter would disperse across the Mesosphere, perhaps contributing in a minute way to a future Noctilucent Cloud display in years to come. We ended the session at 05.00 when most of the stars had vanished by a brightening dawn. We had observed 62 Perseids and 1 sporadic. Years go on a dark moonless night in Co. Fermanagh we had observed over 500 Perseids, this goes to show how moonlight and even the natural waxing and waning in activity can vary what an observer might see each Summer, truth is you just never know until you go out. We enjoyed the all-night watch, it felt like the astro scenes had begun. The nights are getting darker and longer, we look forward to chasing auroras and watching other meteor showers later in the year. In particular the Taurids, Leonids and my favourite, the Geminids.
I didn't really sleep when I got home thanks to the warm night so I was wrecked when I got up, it was then that I got a call from UTV asking me if I would do an interview about the Perseids, at first I wasn't keen on the idea due to the lack of sleep but then I agreed to do it, after all, it's nice to be able to talk about your passion. The interview took place at OM Dark Sky Park & Observatory and it was a glorious hot day, I met cameraman Jordan who was a cool guy, he too had a big interest in Astronomy so we clicked immediately, I only had to talk for several minutes and I looked and felt like a zombie then that was it wrapped up. That evening the segment appeared on the main UTV news including a few of my images and those from other observers. I think it's great to see that local television is interested in covering interesting sky events, not only that but including those people deeply connected with the observational and photography aspect of things. More importantly the segment was honest and accurate, talking about how the Perseids were a success but rates were affected by the bright moon which was disappointing for some, but that was the reality of this particular Perseid watch and it was showcased as it was, very good, no fake news, AI, hype or outright lies, I hope this positive trend continues in the future.
We had several big storm set-ups mid month but all of them were once again either capped or cloud tops were too warm, or there was no source of lift or moisture issues despite charts showing over 2000 CAPE, this was once again another let-down typical of Summer 2025, I was used to it now and didn't let it bother me, we actually had three days in a row of big energy and not one of them produced anything, not even a drop of rain, I hate to see good CAPE being wasted, this was the new norm. However on the fourth day, August 14th, models were showing lower CAPE but some models were very keen on showing strong precip, especially GFS and the AROME who were indicating very potent cells over Mid-Ulster, Antrim, Armagh and Down areas, in fact, the Met Office had a yellow warning for thunderstorms for the east of N. Ireland. I didn't expect to see any, the cloud tops were way too warm for thunder, however an update later showed slightly cooler tops in the E/SE of NI later in the evening, it still didn't look cold enough for me but stranger things have happened.
The flow was a slack Sly, slight SWly, there was no shear at all but there was local convergence. A trough would pass through aiding with lift so that was something, GFS showed 400 CAPE however the high res model was showing a good pocket of 800 MUCAPE over the Cookstown area in the afternoon with several models indicating strong showers in the same area. Since this was my area I would keep watch, I wasn't expecting a storm but maybe convection and perhaps a funnel cloud in the slack flow, I would be on guard.
The day began with fog then low grey cloud, it didn't look good, it hung around to early afternoon but it did feel warm and humid and the sun was trying. Red cores had already formed over the border and over Armagh. Later pockets of sunshine appeared with blue skies and things really began to heat up in a big way, the sky was full of small fleecy cumulus but they had that capped look. I did see one tower to the W of me which looked interesting, it was solid with knuckles but a little short, it wasn't tall enough but it was the most interesting thing in the sky yet I suspected it would remain capped. I had some personal things to take care of near Magherafelt so I was indoors for an hour, when I came out the sky was clear and hot, solar heating was excellent. I took a back road between Magherafelt and Tobermore with the intention of going home when suddenly I saw a huge cell to the W not that far away at all, just sitting there like a quiet monster. The tops looks really tall and I saw multiple towers in a line, they still looked warm to me, but the cell had serious girth taking up a massive area of sky, it was dark in the mid section and the base was low and black with strands of precip falling, I was beginning to get impressed. I was expecting elevated garbage this day but this was clearly a well developed surface based cell, and it was obvious it was that single small tower I had seen earlier which had given birth to it as it was over the same area of countryside.
I was captivated, I pulled off the main road into a perfectly positioned layby near two massive fields, surrounded by flat countryside with Slieve Gallion in the distance. It was a scenic location with a great view, outside the sun was strong and I was sweating in the heat. I sat on the bonnet of the van and just watched the sky. The base was long and dark, it looked fully capable of funnels, I watched numerous areas of scud unfurling along its length as the cell slowly crept N/NE. It was strange to see such a huge dark cell with high tops so quiet, I was half expecting to hear thunder rumble at any moment, this thing was on the verge of becoming a big storm. I didn't take images, just observed and enjoyed the moment. A big wall of precip opened up under it's forward side so I decided to chase after it so I was back in the van heading S just chasing by instinct.
By good fortune the road I was on took me directly towards the cell, I could see that the big core was over Moneymore, it's always amazing on a hot dry day to see the sudden arrival of something like this seemingly out of nowhere, I'm sure many people didn't see it coming given how warm and dry it had been. I saw the core dead ahead, my plan was to enter the precip to see what was happening then emerge from the other side to look for structure. I entered Moneymore, dark skies, monsoon rainfall, just like the click of a finger, as I entered the middle of the town I was directly under the heaviest sector of the core, it was quite mad I have to say, wipers full speed, difficult to see, the main road in the town was flooded, it was covered in several inches of standing water, rainfall was streaming down the hills, down the sloping roads and funneled onto the main road like contributories converging into a flooding river. Manholes were removed, drains were overflowing, and sides of the road were filled with deep water causing big waves as traffic drove through, it was like an utterly different world, this was a major downpour and I was loving it.
As I made my way through the S end of Moneymore I saw a glint of light, that meant the sun was shining on the other side, there was potential for a photo opportunity. If I could make it out the other side I might get a chance at seeing some kind of structure, or maybe not, I wouldn't know until I tried. The transition from monsoon to glorious sunshine was astonishing!, it seemed to happen within a couple of seconds, the division between rain and clear sky could have been cut with a knife, it was sudden and shocking and amazing in equal measure. I looked up as I emerged from the rain and was shocked once again, directly overhead far above my windscreen was a enormous updraught plume, it looked so high up I couldn't believe it, this was way better than anything I had expected, I don't think I've ever seen an updraught that tall or strong with such warm tops in my life. The plume was rock solid, bright white in the sunshine and literally appeared to be boiling with vigorous motion. I drove a few hundred meters further along the main carriageway then once I was on completely dry road I stopped in the layby where the trucks rest and got out for a look.
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I had the full frame with 15mm wide angle on and my first thoughts were that the cell was too large, I couldn't fit in any of the updraughts with the foreground, drone would be no good either as the FOV was smaller than the camera. I had to wait until the cell moved further away and hope for a glimpse of the convection associated with it. Radar showed a big white echo rite over Moneymore for quite some time, that explained the deluge. Looking N at the back of the cell and core, main powerful updraught now hidden in cloud to upper right extending far beyond the frame high into the sky.
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I was in the zone that much I forgot to close the rear doors of the van. Long dark base to the right, core on left, base extended far out of frame to the right, whole thing slow moving and creeping away from me across the fields. I could hear cars passing on the carriageway blaring their horns in recognition when they saw me with the camera, they must have been storm fans too.
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Cell getting further away and starting to get some structure and glimpses of the updraughts, a big new tower was going up at the flank catching the sunshine, it was expanding like a balloon being filled with air. ASDA driver probably wondering what I was shooting and why I was getting his truck in the foreground.
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Moving further away then boom! - a massive push from that new updraught with explosive energy, tower expanding in real time, literally by the second, rock hard and massive in height, 15mm on full frame here and too big to get it all in, how this wasn't producing thunder was beyond me. I deliberately framed the van with the cell, looking back on it now I should have shot a time lapse of this very scene. It was hot, the sun was strong and while this impressive cell was dominating the sky the tarmac covering the layby where I stood was covered with evaporating rain, the wet ground was producing white clouds of mist which swirled and twisted like snakes all over here and the main carriageway, the whole experience was quite cool and a visual reminder of the flooding rainfall which had fallen moments earlier. I would count this as my favourite image from August so far, I have a thing for strong convective updraughts.
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More distant now to the NE yet still sporting powerful convection at 15mm, I have to say I wasn't expecting to see anything of this caliber. I drove back to Moneymore and the main street and hill was covered in stones and gravel, all washed into the town by the torrents of water rushing down the hills, it was quite a dramatic scene, I should have pulled over to get images but the town was busy and parking was problematic so I let it go. In the hours which followed there were interesting accounts on social media and in person from those who experienced the remarkable rain in Moneymore and others from Cookstown who where bone dry but who witnessed the dark storm clouds nearby. Soon after thunderstorms actually broke out over Co. Down where the tops were a fraction colder than here, this was a good result all around and goes to show that anything can happen in the sky, even when the charts don't look 100% promising.
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A week later I spent an evening drone filming along the north coast and near the shore of Lough Foyle, despite a forecast promising clear skies it turned out to be overcast and grey killing any light, however I made the most of it. It was late evening and I was about to go home when I thought that I would like to catch something Summery to end this website report, maybe a sunset, or even better, farmers at work who would be taking advantage of the dry weather. On instinct I took a drive along the scenic route in the Myroe area, suddenly the sun appeared below a deck of stratus clouds perhaps 15 min's from setting behind the hills of Donegal, the countryside was bathed in a soft warm beautiful light. Then to my right in the distance behind a line of trees I saw a colum of dust rising high into the air and for a moment I suspected a dust devil, but it wasn't rotating and it evening wasn't hot enough, it was then that I realized it was dust rising from a working combine, this was exactly what I had been looking for.
I pulled off the road and parked nose-in through the gap in an open gate to an empty field, in the distance was the combine, it was such a great scene, the sun would be dipping below the hills soon so I wasted no time and got the drone in the air. The drone's perspective was spectacular, the landscape here is vast, fertile and flat with no obsctructions to worry about, and there was the combine working it's last few acres in the last light of day. For some reason the scene reminded me of the opening credits from 'Dallas'. There has been no proper rain in weeks so the ground was bone dry, dust and residue from the crops was lofted high into the calm air, this dust was then back-lit by the setting sun for a very atmospheric scene. I filmed an entire video sequence here then got low down in front of the combine for a few wide angle images using the main camera. Scene of the day after hours out on location and the perfect late summer finale I needed for this report.
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One more image, slightly closer, three persons visible inside the cab. Once the sun vanished I flew back and landed feeling content with this moment. As I write this up on August 26th it truly is late summer. The month will soon be over and the weather has changed to a slightly cooler more unsettled theme, the days are shortening somewhat and there's more than a hint of Autumn in the air. The astro night shoots, aurora hunts, and telescope observing sessions will be returning to the fray very soon. Thanks very much for reading and I hope you all had a great summer.
Martin McKenna
