THE Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) has announced the winners of its annual weather photography competition. Rudolf Sulgan of New York was named the U.K. association’s Weather Photographer of the Year for his image “Blizzard,” depicting pedestrians braving blistering winds and snow on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sulgan said the toughest part of getting the shot, aside from the chilling temperature, was the frequent changes in available light. Alexey Trofimov was voted the Public Favorite for “Baikal Treasure,” which reveals the almost turquoise ice on Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest and largest freshwater lake. “The light that the sun gave, refracting in blocks of ice, caught my attention and made me take this picture,” Trofimov said. Another Russian, Kolesnik Stephanie Sergeevna, was named Young Weather Photographer of the Year with “Frozen Life,” which Sergeevna describes as “part of sunny summer frozen in ice.” The fifth annual contest, hosted by the society in association with AccuWeather, drew more than 7,700 submissions from over 2,600 photographers around the globe. Their works depicted weather in all its awesomeness, beauty and terror - from a rainbow shining over a pony in Swansea, Wales, to a tornado tearing through rural Colorado. From them, 26 finalists were announced in August, with the winner and runner-ups in each category announced at a virtual event Saturday. “Weather is consistently on people’s minds because it impacts so much of our daily lives,” the organization said. “It also lends itself fantastically to photography.” Sulgan’s winning photograph will appear in the society’s annual calendar. He said he chose his submission to draw attention to global warming, which will make millions of people living on the coasts increasingly vulnerable to flooding. “I made this image in 2018 during a strong blizzard, as El Nino’s periodic warming of water often disrupts normal weather patterns,” he wrote. A blizzard is a storm with wind speeds greater than 56 kmph and enough snow to reduce visibility below 400 meters for at least three hours. Snow doesn’t even have to be falling: Strong winds can pick up flakes that have already fallen and create a “ground blizzard.” Vu Trung Huan of Vietnam was first runner-up in the main category with a sunrise photo of the otherworldly fog-covered tea hills of Phu Tho. “When the sun is up, everything is tinged with sunlight, on the tea buds there is still glittering morning dew,” Huan wrote, “a pure beauty that makes you just want to embrace everything.” Second runner-up went to self-described stormchaser Maja Kraljik for her image of a foreboding shelf cloud overlooking Croatia’s Istria peninsula. “I was waiting for two hours for the cloud to arrive and then it made a real mess,” Kraljik said. Coming in second in the Young Weather Photographer category was Emma Rose Karsten, with “Surf’s Up,” depicting a huge awesome cloud in the parking lot of a high school in Wildwood, Missouri, the United States. Founded 170 years ago, the RMS works “to strengthen the science and raise awareness of the importance of weather and climate, support meteorological professionals and inspire enthusiasts.” This year’s judges included RMS director Liz Bentley, StormHour Ltd. owner Mark Boardman, photo editor Matt Clark, meteorologist Jesse Ferrell and photographer Gareth Mon Jones, winner of Weather Photographer of the Year 2019. (SD-Agencies) | 