2013 Australian Weather Calendar released today

06/11/2012

Released today the Australian Weather Calendar 2013 showcases the finest landscape and environmental photography in the country.

Published by the Bureau of Meteorology and Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, this popular not-for-profit publishing exercise now in its 29th year, serves to promote the understanding of meteorology and oceanography through a fiercely contended photo competition that reels in thousands of entries each year.

This year’s cover shot is a dramatic image of lightning striking the Q1 skyscraper on the Gold Coast. Ann Van Breemen, who snapped the iconic image, describes herself as a ‘serious amateur’ since her hobby-photographer father gave her a camera when she was 10. As a storm swept toward the coast she set her camera on a tripod on the 33rd floor, and took 20 second exposures for around half an hour.

“The storm got too close, and rain starting coming in the window. I was just about to pack up when I missed three horizontal flashes that hit the Q1 building. I cursed and thought ‘just one more’ – and got the shot. Lightning often hits the spire,” said Ms Van Breemen.

“I’m no storm chaser,” she adds, “My equipment is too expensive, I’m lazy and I’d like to live a little longer.”

Bureau of Meteorology calendar project manager, Robert Kershaw, said with so many stunning images to choose from, the challenge is to reflect the broadest possible range of weather phenomena – across all seven states and territories.

“From an Australia Day lightning display that competes with fireworks in Perth, to rows of deep pink and violet stratocumulous clouds in country Victoria, and clouds casting dappled shadows on the terracotta coloured Simpson Desert – this calendar is an enduring record of the moments when nature puts on her most dramatic show,” said Mr Kershaw.