Nacreous cloud display 1-2 Feb 2016

[Edward Graham]

I'm sure many members have seen the media reports on the recent nacreous (PSC, Mother of Pearl) cloud display over the Britain & Ireland. Perhaps some members even took photographs? If so, please share! (N.B. There are many beautiful ones to the seen on Twitter, search using hashtags #nacreous and #nacreousclouds).

I think this display was possibly unique over the British Isles, for the following reasons:
1. It occurred over an unusually large area e.g. over most of mainland Scotland (where skies were clear), Northern England (including Manchester), Wales and Ireland.
2. The display lasted up to 48hrs in places - an unusually long period of time
3. In the case of the display over Dublin/Wicklow (Ireland), I can find no previous historic reference to nacreous clouds in the area, going right back to the 19th century.

The dates of previous displays over the past two decades are as follows (non-exhaustive, please feel free to add any that I have missed, thanks!):
16 Feb 1996: Scotland, N England
30 November 1999: Aberdeen and E Scotland
19 January 2008: Belgium
9 December 2012: Aberdeen, the North and Isle of Harris
1-2 February 2016: This event

If further interested, I've written a blog post on this event at: https://uhi-mahara.co.uk/view/view.php?id=5156 which goes into more detail about the ozone level and stratospheric temperatures. I am informed too that NASA might be publishing an "image of the Day" feature on this event shortly, which might shed more light on the event.

Eddie Graham
Stornoway