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I'm just going to jump into a rant here straight away as there's no getting around it. The 2024 Summer storm season has been the worst I've ever experienced in my life, period. As I write this I can categorically say that I absolutely detest this Summer, I mean I hate it, its been a shameful embarrassment with the exception being the June 25th/26th Tonga-generated NLC display was which breathtaking, thank goodness that happened, its been the only epic event of the last three months. Let's put NLCs to the side for a moment because I want to talk about storms, or in this case the lack of them. What makes this season so bad is that happened immediately after the best storm season I've ever experienced in 2023, that truly was an action packed time with great memories, hot and humid days, amazing storms, prolific thunder, great storm structure, big CAPE and storms that looked like they came from the Tropics, it was the season which kept on giving, so naturally expectations were high for 2024, but what a let down it has been.
May began with great encouragement, in fact, May in recent years has been a fantastic month, but when June started everything nose dived. It rarely even felt like Summer, the days were cooler, fresher, not humid, we had a lot of cloud at night and influences from frequent Nly and NWly flows more typical of Autumn. The result was stable cooler boring weather, its even worse when you get fronts and showers with no instability at all. We had a couple of thunder days which aren't worth talking about, two distant rumbles in 100j/kg of CAPE just don't cut it in Summer, photo opportunities were zero, I barely took my DSLR out of the bag. It just felt like nothing was working out at all and that theme was on constant repeat, it got to the stage were I lost all hope in nature and had given up on thunderstorms, this had a severe knock-on effect to me, I had already accepted that this Summer was a non-event and in my mind I had already moved on to night sky action for Autumn.
I don't want to go on about it too much but do you know when you are truly passionate about something, you think about it all the time, dream about it, and nothing happens, there's only so much you can take before you start to loose all hope in nature, well this was my mind set. Anyway, around this time the sun became extremely active, the solar disk was covered in sunspots, I was counting between 8 and 10 groups every day extending across the entire disk with great complexity. As a result several solar flares and subsequent CMEs where launched in the direction of Earth and it looked like we had multi night aurora prospects on the way, these I was excited for, maybe this was meant to be the year for epic astronomical events instead.
I had planned on going to the north coast to meet my friends for an aurora shoot, I was really looking forward to this late night adventure and photo shoot, I was ready to leave as soon as the first CME hit. It never happened, there was no CME at all then the sky clouded over when it was supposed to be clear. Then the following night was cloudy too so that was wasted anyway, then a big CME associated with an X-class solar flare was expected a couple of nights later moving at 1000km/sec for a G3 storm, and guess what, it never showed either. NOAA revised their information and said it could hit on the 10th or the 11th which meant it was slower and likely less potent, and anyway where the heck was it? and to make matters worse the 11th was also expected to be cloudy so it looked like all three CMES were a bust for various reasons and as such I gave up on these and decided to wait for a better set-up.
August 11th/12th was also the night of the Perseid meteor shower maximum, an event which we always like to meet up for, but it was also forecast to be cloudy so that was two events gone. Our last hope, and to me the most exciting of them all was the prospect of severe thunderstorms also on the night of August 11th/12th, anticipation was building for this and the parameters really did look excellent. Could this be the storm event of Summer?, nature waiting to redeem herself and make the long thunder drought over in style?, it really was looking this way and my excitement was building however I had been let down that many times recently I was already anticipating a bust from this too, however it was my last chance at something cool and I was prepared to give it my all.
Amazingly this was a classic Summer storm set-up, the more rare kind for N. Ireland. A warm unstable elevated plume was advecting N/NW with an air mass that originated from Spain and even parts of Africa. This air mass was very humid with a great temperature dew point spread indicating juicy air for storms to feed on. The air however was capped but this cap was expected to erode with dramatic consequences. At the same time a very active cold front and short wave where moving in from the Atlantic from W to E, this was a clash of air masses, the cold front would act as a source of lift and the colder air aloft would erode the capping inversion instigating explosive thunderstorm development. In addition to this there would be 50-60 knots of deep layer shear and hodographs showed turning through the atmosphere. This combination of very strong shear and 500-1000 j/kg of ML CAPE meant that severe thunderstorms were likely.
These storms would be highly organized with a chance of 2cm hail and because they were elevated in nature they would have very high bases, such a set-up always results in dangerous c-g lightning. Such events in the past have damaged structures and killed livestock, also the threat of flash flooding was more than likely. The consensus was that storms may even form into elevated supercells along the cold front then eventually take on more of a squall line mode. What made this event even more exciting was that all this was going to take place in darkness across N. Ireland so this was our chance of rare night time lightning. If models were correct then storms would break out across Mid-Ulster then move over eastern areas later, these were expected around midnight to 7am. There were two areas of interest for me so my plan included both, the first plan was to intercept the Mid-Ulster cells, I would likely find a high vantage point or go to Lough Neagh for those, then intercept the cold front moving over W Tyrone between 3am and 4am for the big lightning show, there was even a chance of an elevated shelf cloud along the line, then stay out to dawn and watch it pass, this was going to be a long and busy night.
On the 11th Roisin and I spent the day in Armagh and Monaghan and I was glad of the break and escape from the computer, I needed to get away and stop obsessing over charts, after all, it was a very long time to darkness. The day was hot and humid and great to be out in, by late afternoon the sky became overcast from the S and it actually did feel ominous as if something was going to happen, this was the moist plume feeing in bringing an abundant supply of fuel for tonight's storms. When I got home in the early evening I checked online and was impressed to see that storms had already erupted over the Republic, Cork and adjacent areas were getting hammered by lightning and that area was slowly moving N, these would be out storms later. This was all good because storms had broke out much earlier than expected which indicated the atmosphere was primed.
The evening was spent radar watching, by 21.00 the overcast sky was darker than normal so I knew that proper darkness would come earlier tonight bringing with it a greater chance of seeing distant lightning. By 22.00 storms had fired below the border, along the W coast, and off the NW coast, they seemed to be popping up at random and the unseen cold front over the Atlantic was stirring things up big time, it was time to make a move. This was going to be a solo chase until Colleen Webb got in contact and wanted to team up which sounded good to me. We decided just to get out on the road and get sky watching then we could finesse our position later, we agreed to meet in Maghera for 22.30 then head to Benbradagh in Dungiven as a base.
I had just left the house and pulled into the GO station to top up on fuel when I got an excited call from Colleen, she said she was on the road and seen the sky light up with lightning several times already to the W with big orange c-gs. I was delighted to hear that, the night was actually happening, I couldn't wait to get to our location. Twenty min's later I met Colleen in Maghera, there was no messing about or chit chat, we both began driving with intent. As we drove along the now dark Glenshane Pass I wondered when I would see my first lightning of the night, a few min's later I found out when a big flash lit up the sky, it was distant but it was bright and I felt my adrenaline start to pump. I got a phone call from Nigel McFarland, he was on Gortmore watching the same lightning but the wind was so bad there it was no good for photography so he moved to lower ground and would team up with Owen Anderson near Magilligan for the night.
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The news about the wind at elevated locations didn't shock me, I had a feeling that was going to happen, we would find out soon enough. We stopped half way up Bembradagh at a location where I have scored many great storms over the years in the hope it would bring more good fortune, and being half way up maybe it wouldn't be as bad as the summit. Colleen and I got out and got the gear set up, we didn't know if this was going to be our spot for the night but it would be our base for now, we would likely re-position later. It was gusty outside, not severe, maybe blasting 15mph to 20mph at times and anyone who knows the wind will tell you that's not good for photography. My tripod shook and threatened to blow over, I had to hold onto the neck strap in case my DSLR did take an impact, not an ideal start when good stability is needed for taking exposures.
However the view was great with a decent horizon and a good elevation above the lights and haze. We decided to watch first before we started shooting just to see where the action was concentrated, we didn't have to wait long. Storms erupted along the W skyline, then another one further behind to the SW and still others to the NW, three storms active at the same time, however it was the W storm which was the most dramatic as it was bigger and closer. Big flashes lit up the darkness, it was game time. I used my full frame Canon 5D Mark IV and 50mm F/1.8 lens, this was a good focal length, not too wide and not too zoomed in.
This thing about night lightning is we don't get much of it in N. Ireland so we can only draw on limited experience from past events backed up with our years spent doing night photography. I didn't know what settings I needed just yet as the lightning was entirely random, Colleen made a very important observation, she was shocked how infrequent the lightning was. This hit me hard, she was correct, I had never seen a Spanish Plume event with such little activity, all the other events I witnessed in the past were frequent and action packed to the point of being not only spectacular but frightening, but here we had three active storms which were just flashing periodically. For me personally this presented a problem, if there was plenty of lightning then I could waste a few bolts in order to find and dial in my settings and then I could fine tune what I needed to do to increase my chance of getting a really good image, but this wasn't the case tonight, any bolts sacrificed would be a big mistake so luck would play a big roll.
Unlike daytime lightning which requires either a fast shutter at the rite time night lightning is different, in theory you can leave the shutter open for longer just like shooting aurora or the stars, this increases you chances of capturing the bolt in the first place. Then distance comes into play, really distant storms need moderate to high ISOs but close storms only need lower ISOs, then controlling that exposure is the finessing part when you fine tune your ISO and aperture as the storm evolves. I didn't do well in this department tonight, maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the excitement or the pressure to get an image which slowed my judgment but whatever it was I didn't adapt to the moment very well. This is an exposure of a distant elevated cell with precip core forming without lightning.
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A gust of wind nearly blew my camera over so I ended up climbing over a gate and going down a steep slope along the mountain over marshland and wild grass and sheep dung and found a nice spot that was sheltered from the wind, almost, this was so much better. I focused on the distant lights and began taking 4-6 sec exposures at 50mm F/1.8, I just needed to see another bolt to know exactly where to point. Big flash! which lit up my face and cast shadows on the ground which got a roar of delighted from Colleen and I. I previewed my image and was delighted to see I was pointing in the correct direction and got the bolt, score!, a big in-cloud bolt, you can see how high the bases are here hence why these bolts were so easily seen from a vast distance away, the flash also revealed this nice highly structured base to the right as well.
A few min's later a double flash that was even closer, this was getting good, I got it again, when I checked the image I was buzzing to see two c-gs striking the mountain and my exposure was good, I seemed to be in the rite ball park so I would stick to those settings. However when I zoomed in my heart was broken when I saw the image was out of focus, the bolts were big blurs, I was gutted, what the heck?, I knew it was the Canon 50mm lens, anyone who owns one and who uses it at night knows what its like. That lens is great but it has the most sensitive focus of any lens I've used, I mean if you breath on it the thing goes out of focus. I don't know how it happened, maybe I touched it in the heat of the moment but it had moved between the two exposures and the image was ruined so I won't be posting it here. I was disheartened but I knew that this was just the start of a long night ahead with the main action coming later so I took it on the chin and kept shooting.
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Then a massive flash much brighter and closer and once again I got it on camera and my change of focus was fine, but this time the image was blown out, damn it, if it wasn't one thing it was another, at the time I was so engrossed in settings that my brain hadn't worked out why it was blowing out, this would come to me later. I managed to bring the highlights down and surprisingly this turned out to be my best image from the night, 50mm cropped in to reveal a massive c-g bolt striking down, at first I thought it had struck the turbines but upon closer inspection it looked to have gone behind the mountains, but there are several wind farms beyond in that direction so maybe it did hit a turbine somewhere.
Amazingly this was more or less the same direction as the big funnel cloud we had captured from this same location during July over Letterkenny from 25 miles away, it was rotating just beyond those same turbines. These storms where over the W side of Derrry/Londonderry and Donegal so not that far as the crow flies, there where other storms below Fermanagh so that must have been the flashing we saw to the SW. I love the colours in this, you would think it was sunset, the orange tones come from the moisture-rich air mass reflecting lightning bolts and light pollution from the distant towns. I actually really like this image because of the bolt, the colours, and the beauty of the base aloft, it would be the only one I would be happy with from the night, just a shame I couldn't get the remaining highlights toned down, but I will take it.
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Deep crop from the same image, lightning from these elevated storms can be deadly, because of the higher bases the bolts are much more powerful with great potential for damage. I heard the thunder from this one booming across the hills over the blowing wind.
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I took another exposure and the brightest event of the night happened before our very eyes. It must have been two or three bolts at the same time with the principle bolt being a massive photogenic c-g followed by three booms of thunder. I looked at the image, oh come on!!! This image was on course to being my best lightning image ever taken, it would have been a stunner, and I say that with complete modesty. For starters look at the updraught base cloud structure illuminated by the flash and the multiple streaks of precip strands with a strange magenta hue, to the right smack bang in the rule of thirds would have been a spectacular c-g, but instead it was so over exposed it was impossible to recover.
I had messed up, first of all the three combined bolts had made the scene brighter than the others, but there was another reason which was entirely my fault. I had completely failed to notice that this storm was getting closer which was why it was getting bigger and brighter, I was so caught up in the moment this just didn't register with me. With speed shear between 50 and 60 knots this meant these storms where moving around 60mph, imagine driving along the carriageway in your car at 60mph, that's how fast these storms where moving, it was shocking. So here's the image anyway, worth showing for that cool base and a lesson to anyone reading this to always adjust your settings as the storm evolves and stay sharp.
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The storm then moved rapidly across the NW skyline and was even closer, the structure looked great reflecting the lights below and the precip core was spreading out longer, if I could get another bolt now this would be epic. No, the storm died and it never flashed again, you couldn't make it up, anyway you can see motion blur in this 5 sec exposure at F/1.8 due to the incredible shear. I'm a cloud structure person first and foremost so this was being included for that reason, I don't have many nocturnal elevated updraught bases in my collection with these textures.
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The wind was getting too much so we drove down the mountain just 200m or so which helped a bit. More distant lightning began flashing to the W and SW, in this exposure you can make out the top of another cell sheared strongly downwind to the right. Colleen and I spent a good half hour here periodically getting hit by very intense thunderless downpours, once they passed we got treated to brief clear breaks, I took advantage of the moment to check out the night sky. The Milky Way was readily visible and we saw several Perseids which was a nice treat. We discussed the idea of leaving the mountain and going to a new location entirely, we were sick of getting battered by the wind, it felt like Winter not Summer, and I was getting absolutely sick of that bright blue-white light ruining every single exposure, it was so bright it was the most stand out feature of my images, I didn't know the source of it but it was an absolute disgrace, talk about bad light pollution.
Before we changed location I panned the camera to the N/NW and took another exposure of those cool clouds and in the small breaks I was astonished to see vibrant red colours, an aurora!, I hadn't checked the stats all day and to be honest it was the last thing on my mind tonight, but for an aurora to appear that high in the sky it had to be significant, turned out the X-class flare full halo CME had arrived and was in the process of a G3 geomagnetic storm. Even though it was mostly cloudy tonight we made a note to watch out for it during any clear breaks.
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It was 01.00, Colleen and I descended the mountain, excited Dungiven, and drove for a few miles W to get a little closer to the cold front and enjoy the comforts of shelter. We just pulled onto the shoulder along a random stretch of road and got out for a look at the sky, we would end up spending much of the night here. This road offered a great view of the sky all around, we were overjoyed to be out of the wind, this was sheltered and warm and with not a single car in sight on what should have been a busy road. There was a lull in the storms and Colleen and I began to get a bad feeling after 03.00, according to the AROME the cold front should have been more or less over us by now producing storms rite here, but the cold front was far away and still over the W coast, it had somehow been stalled or slowed down, this really took its tole on our moral.
We both began to suspect this entire night would be a bust for inland, we were starting to get tired and cold from the lack of sleep. I think we began loosing the plot for a while talking absolute nonsense then venting our anger at nature, it just felt like the Summer of 2024 had struck again, no big storms happening where they should be and we hadn't one decent image to show from the night, furthermore we knew this likely was our only chance of night lightning of the year and it had been wasted. Sometimes there's only so much disappointment and let downs you can take. It was worse for Colleen as she had to be up early for work in the morning and here she was with no sleep standing on a road in the middle of the night hoping to get cool storm images. Fair play to her as she didn't want to give up and kept staying out longer than she had planned so it looked like it was going to be an all nighter, to be honest with you I knew we were not going to get our dream images at all, but I can be stubborn and didn't want to give up so I suck it out too, I was here to get a cool lightning image, all I needed was one to make the night.
After 04.00 we changed our mind sets and adopted a much more positive attitude and it was as if the universe had been listening. The cold front activated again and we watched new lightning to the N/NW over the Atlantic ocean, more lightning to the W and very active lightning to our SW. Even though these where miles away we could see them lighting up the sky and reflecting off the clouds high up, at times two or three flashes at once, someone was getting an amazing show and that cold front was slowly moving this way, if we stuck it out for longer we might just get rewarded. Breaks in the cloud opened up and we could see a huge aurora, I panned the camera to the N/NE and red and pink colours filled the wide angle lens and as we watched a new storm began to flash to the NE, you can see it lighting up the cloud in this image, this is the first time I've ever captured an aurora with lightning in the same frame.
At one stage we were watching the aurora when lightning discharges where happening to the NW, W, SE and NE all at the same time, we where surrounded by electrical storms with a geomagnetic storm above us. Then as if that wasn't cool enough over the course of several minutes we witnessed four Perseid fireballs all in the pre-dawn W sky at mag -5 or as bright as planet Venus. Lightning, aurora, fireballs, it was all happening, I don't think I've ever experienced a triple nature whammy like it before. Of course much of this was visual and the lightning was distant but it was still magical and at this hour of the night everything felt surreal and dream-like. Then to the E we could see a beautiful close conjunction between planets Mars and Jupiter with nearby Aldebaran in Taurus.
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Later looking due W along our road to infinity, another storm lit up the sky over the ocean and in the gaps within the clouds to the upper right you can just make out the glow from the aurora which was still ongoing and big with orange-red colours high in the sky. Although neither example here is clearly seen or photogenic its still one of those rare times in which we could say we saw aurora and lightning from N. Ireland.
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We were communicating with Owain Rice who said the cold front was getting better defined again on radar, it was 04.00 and an active area with lightning over SW Ireland was moving up and could be in our area within the hour. Nigel rang too, he was still watching from the Magilligan area, it was good to know both were up all night too along with us. I think at this stage Colleen and I had lost all hope for the action scene we needed, the front was still far away and soon the light of dawn would be appearing and we would loose our chance of night lightning. The sky even looked quiet with fewer flashes and they always seemed very far away, time was running out. The radar did show a well defined red train of echoes along the leading edge of the front, was there the prospect of an elevated shelf cloud in the pre-dawn light? it was this which kept us going. We turned our cameras to the SW and began taking short exposures with the anticipation of something cool appearing soon.
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Flashes began again in this direction, the blue glow of approaching dawn was contrasting nicely with the warm LP glow on the clouds, if we could get one decent c-g in this light it would be great.
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Lightning did light up the sky once again in this direction but it was very sporadic, the sky was getting mean and dark there despite the brightening sky, but nothing happened. It was 05.15 and we had had enough, the front was taking forever and soon it would be daylight with busy traffic on this road. We decided to call it a night, Colleen headed back to Portglenone and I to Cookstown, I reckoned I would intercept the storm there and maybe get that shelf after all.
I drove back disappointed by the entire night, when I approached Moneymore from high ground I could see the cold front surging in with a much faster speed, but it looked an absolute mess, no shelf, just a common grey front of utter trash, at seeing this I completely lost all interest. When I literally parked at home and turned off the engine thunder rumbled, the storm was now rite over my home, it felt like a slap in the face after being out all night. I went inside for a brew and left the back door open to enjoy the rumbles, I didn't even watch the lightning I was so disheartened. However at 06.06 there was a tremendous rumble of thunder which sounded like it came from a bolt almost over my house, it was like a canon crack of shocking volume, sudden and even frightening, Rhua who is not normally scared by thunder ran under the table, now that was impressive, definitely the loudest close range thunder I've experienced in years. Soon the storm passed over the lough moving at phenomenal speed and it was back to grey skies and rain. I called it a night at 07.30 and had really nothing to show for the effort.
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The next day I was in a foul mood however my attention quickly turned to geomagnetic storms, I was surprised to see that the aurora we glimpsed last night was still going strong and was now classified as a G4 during daytime for us, this was much stronger than originally forecast, the question was would it last another eight hours until darkness and would it be clear? The models showed it clouding over soon after dark but there was a window over the N and NE of the country of clear skies from 23.00 to 01.00 so there was a chance for some.
Since it was expected to cloud over I abandoned any ideas of driving to the coast so I would chance my luck in the local area. As twilight transitioned to darkness reports began to appear from UK and Ireland of aurora in the twilight, it was a G2, not a severe storm but certainly strong enough to be of interest and the Bz was staying south. I put the drone up from outside Cookstown and took a few test exposures just as it began to get dark, sure enough there was an aurora on camera, a green arc with one or two faint rays, I burned through an entire battery then landed the drone, the time was 23.30. I casually looked up at the sky and was astonished to see massive naked eye beams towering far above the rooftops here, so high they were getting close to overhead, like highly concentrated searchlight beams, I couldn't believe it, an outburst was happening and the sky was clearing well.
I inserted another battery and got the drone back in the air, altitude 100m, ISO800, F/2.8, manual WB, manual camera mode, shutter speed of 6 sec's seemed to do the trick. When I previewed the image on the screen I was like holy s**t, this was a legit easy G2 storm and it looked really good. Even with my dark adaption slightly hampered by the drone screen I could see subtle red and magenta colours with the naked eye high above the street lights. Please excuse the bright light source in the foreground, that's from the famous Dromona cream factory along the carriageway outside town, there was nothing I could do about it at short notice.
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Another exposure with slight drone drift, I was getting the usual high wind warnings on the screen, then within a few min's the storm subsided to a normal G1 type display and the show was over, then an hour later it clouded over, oh and at a casual glance TCrB was still behaving itself.
This surprise aurora really lifted my mood, I felt that buzz again from nature. Even though I was incredibly frustrated with the previous night's chase I began to relax a little and see it in a different perspective. It actually was a good adventure, we saw lightning, c-gs, heard thunder, fireballs, a planet conjunction and a surprise aurora, and now another aurora for the second night in a row which was photogenic, with all these wonders in mind I really can't complain and should embrace anything the sky reveals. The photo opps I want will come another time and there will always be more storms to look forward to. My gut is telling me that 2024 won't be remembered for weather events, I suspect however that astronomical events will be stealing the show this year and with the prospect of more auroras on the way and a possible nice comet I look forward to seeing how the rest of the year pans out. Thanks very much for putting up with my mood swings during this write up.
Martin McKenna
