The Royal Meteorological Society has announced the winners of the 2023 Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year competition. This year’s overall winner is Francisco Negroni of Chile, with a truly remarkable image titled A Perfect Cloud. It shows two surreal, flying saucer-like rings of lenticular cloud around the snow-covered summit of Chile’s most active Villarrica volcano. The fiery orange glow of lava illuminates the clouds from within, creating an otherworldly scene.

Negroni’s splendid image has many elements to it that caught the jury’s eye. The judges were impressed by the contrast of hot-lava glow and white snow in the photo, and by the capture of lenticular clouds. The photo also shows the rotation of the earth. The stars appear as streaks since this is a long exposure photo. I’d also add the contrast of the blue sky against the orange glow of the clouds – it’s such a pleasing combination of complementary colors. All in all, the fantastic shot won Negroni the £5000 cash prize.

The jury selected the winners from a shortlist of 25 images, received by entrants from 94 countries. A panel of experts from the fields of meteorology, photography, and journalism were in charge of proclaiming the winners, and they included the members of the UK’s Met Office and ITV Weather team.

The second place was awarded to Tran Tuan for a terrifying drone shot of a wildfire destroying a forest in Bac Giang province, Vietnam. Forest Fire Boundary shows a split landscape; half lush and green, the other half engulfed by smoke and flames.

The third place winner is Christoph Schaarschmidt from Germany for his image Fichtelberg Mountain. It captures a beautiful scene sculptured by an icy build-up of snow and rime – a type of ice that forms when supercooled water droplets freeze on contact with sub-zero surfaces.

In addition, the public voted for their favorite photos on the Royal Meteorological Society’s website. I was happy to see that the Public Vote winner is Fernando Braga. He is a Brazilian photographer whom we recently featured on DIYP, who took an incredible photo of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer as it was struck by lightning!

Keep scrolling down and take a look at the category winners of the 2023 Weather Photographer of the Year, and make sure to visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s website, where you can see the full shortlist.