2023 in pictures

sryanbruen

2023 has been a big year for me with lots of memories made and different weather phenomena captured. I will be showcasing some of these photos in this now annual thread of x year in pictures with some thoughts on each month.

January I was not up to a lot. I should have enjoyed it with lots of sunny days, some colourful skies during the third and final week. However, the Atlantic dominated first few weeks were a chore to get through for the most part though the cold period and second half in general were fine with a prolonged dry spell that would go on into February. A rare localised misty sunrise I missed on 24th.

The second day of 2023 was a beautiful sunny day which I took the chance to stroll to the top of Killiney Hill to start the year on a high note. Here is the sunset view from the drone of the Obelisk at the top of the hill looking towards Dún Laoghaire.

February as a weather enthusiast was very tedious. It was very dry, mild and on the rather cloudy side. Not a month I enjoyed at all. The 5th was by far my favourite day of the month with good sunshine and the day ending with one of the best crepuscular ray displays I've seen to date as seen from Father Collins Park. The 7th also gets a shout for having an epic sunset. The first 8 days had some pretty colourful skies in fairness.

March compared to February was much more interesting. However, it was exceptionally wet which made it very unpleasant and the first 6 days were awful with low cloud and chilly conditions, sometimes drizzle or light rain. The cold spell was enjoyable, didn't feel cold at all. The 7th was a beautiful sunny day and the 9th was a horrendous day over lowland Dublin with heavy rain and strong easterly winds but mountain snow was wonderful. Overnight the 9th into the 10th brought widespread snow across the county but the mountains were absolutely pasted and the day itself was sunny - my dream conditions. Took the chance to go to the Hellfire Club on the 10th and Cruagh Wood on the 9th to enjoy the snow seeing as my area wasn't going to get anything being too close to the sea. The Dublin Mountains looked alpine. The visibility was also excellent and I was able to see the snow covered Mourne Mountains in County Down all the way from the Hellfire Club.

As well as all that, there was some decent convection especially on the 24th which cannot be said for many Marches this century. At the end of the day though, a pretty terrible month and a far cry from the grand March of 2022.

April had a fair bit of photographic interest though was not a very pleasant month again. It was rather wet and often brisk winds especially during the anticyclonic period in the third week - those easterly winds were too much! The month began with some very colourful skies for much of the first 8 days - all but 1 of which I missed as they were sunrises and I was not anticipating them.

The 10th was a textbook April showers day - very rare in recent times - with lots of hail showers and produced my best mammatus clouds display to date during the evening, the below panorama was captured from Tallaght.

The 16th was an interesting day, first day of the year that felt warm after a poor morning. Only the third time since 1961 that Ireland has had the first 20C of the year before the UK.

Southeasterly winds on the 17th allowed fog to form over the top of Howth which was cool to see.

The final two days produced thunderstorm conditions - the last image is a shelf cloud from one on the 29th. Unusual to see here in April and wasn't going to be the last thunderstorms of 2023..

May was a fine month though not the best in the world. Its highlight by far was the thunderstorm on the 8th which was the greatest in my life to date which ain't saying much - only November 2010 probably compares because that was thundersnow. Was risking my life to capture it, directly overhead and heard rolling thunder. As the storm was approaching, I captured a CG lightning strike over Howth whilst my drone was returning to home.

The very dry spell which would last into June from mid-month was mostly fine with some beautiful days such as the 29th and 30th. The 30th gave the brightest and most prolonged sun pillar I've seen lasting for a good hour at least before/during sunrise (photo from Portmarnock) and the sunset on the 29th (photo from Skerries) also featured one which lasted a long time and even glowed red.

June was a fantastic month. Started off rather chilly here on the exposed east coast with some low cloud afternoons but sunny early mornings and evenings. The Bank Holiday weekend of 3rd-5th though was stupendous with unbroken sunshine, the best Bank Holiday since 2020. There were scattered lovely days throughout the month such as the 9th, 11th, 13th-15th and 22nd. It became very warm after the first week even here on the east coast. Another very decent thunderstorm occurred on the 25th (second two pics). First shot is from Portrane on 14th June, my personal favourite day of the summer with unbroken sunshine, a fantastic sunset, perfect temperature and light breeze as well as a very bright sundog which is not visible in this shot.

I'll continue with the second half of the year in a subsequent post.

sryanbruen

Continuing with the rest of 2023.

The less said about July the better. It was a horrendous month, one of the worst summer months I have personally experienced and felt especially poor coming off the back of a grand June.

First 2 shots were from a torrential thundery downpour on the 3rd July.

Third one is the only decent noctilucent clouds I got to see all season on 4th July (I missed 29th July) at Howth, it was a poor summer for them as was expected given the solar cycle.

Fourth one is some of the rare fine weather we got during the month with an enjoyable warm-ish evening on the 8th July and a red sky showed which was very decent for summer given it's normally a very hazy season which mutes colours. Pic was taken at Father Collins Park.

August was boring. Not much to speak of besides yet another decent thunderstorm on the 25th - first pic below shows the storm clearing into the Irish Sea from Howth.

On the other hand, September was anything but boring. There was lots going on and I have so many pictures that I'm trying hard to only give a few but I could give so much more.

The highlight of my September was definitely the aurora borealis on the night of the 12th/13th September with perfect clear skies and pillars easily visible with the naked eye at Balbriggan. There was another big display of the aurora on the 24th/25th September too (second shot at Skerries).

Then there was also of course the heatwave which brought some fantastic mornings especially.T

Third shot is an inversion at Howth on the 2nd with Dublin Bay covered by fog.

Fourth is dawn anticrepuscular rays over the misty fields near Portmarnock and Baldoyle on the 4th and the fifth is the sunrise over misty Portmarnock Golf Links from the same morning.

Sixth is a very hazy red sun setting from Howth on the 7th.

Seventh and eighth are from the sunrise in the Phoenix Park on the 8th with komorebi in the eighth one.

October was another amazing month for weather photography.

Had not one but two fogbows, first one on the 9th at Poolbeg and the second one on the 25th in the Phoenix Park.

Third picture is an amazing rainbow lined up with Howth Lighthouse on the 24th - a shot I had been after for three years.

Fourth picture is a lovely colourful sunset sky at Portrane on the 2nd.

Fifth picture is a fiery red sky before sunrise on the 17th at Sutton, a shepherd's warning about all the rain that was going to come from Storm Babet.

Sixth picture is a line of cumulonimbus towers during sunrise in the Phoenix Park on the 27th and slight patches of mist.

Seventh picture is another from the sunrise on the 25th in the Phoenix Park with mist and golden hour light.

November was largely benign. Its highlight was by far another epic aurora borealis display on the 5th - picture taken at Skerries. This aurora also brought the rare visit from STEVE which I did not get to capture.

A beautiful sunrise in the Phoenix Park on the 11th.

The last few pictures are all from the 30th which was a poor weather day and it was not cold enough for lowland snow nor was precipitation frequent or intense enough. First 2 from the Wicklow Mountains and second 2 showing some evening showers coming in from the Irish Sea.

December was very poor. Its highlight was the historic outbreak of nacreous clouds from the 21st-23rd from a SPV displacement, in Dublin we did not get to see them a lot thanks to frequent cloud cover but they showed themselves for periods on the 21st. I managed to line them up with the Poolbeg Chimneys.

There was some mountain snow early on but not a lot - pic at Ballinastoe, Wicklow on the 2nd.