Picture-perfect come rain, sun or snow: From fogbows to lightning storms and mesmerising cloud formations – the images battling to be weather photo of the year

Breathtaking images of weather phenomena including dramatic clouds, rare lightning sprites, floods and magical mists are just some of the photos making up the shortlist in this year's Weather Photographer of the Year competition.

Photographs were submitted by entrants from 114 countries around the world, and showcase the awe and majesty of the world's weather and the consequences of climate change.

More than 8,900 photographs were submitted by over 3,300 photographers with a new mobile phone category this year attracting over 3,250 entries.

Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: 'Weather and climate is something that we all share, but the drama, as well as the beauty of this force of nature, is something that can be truly unique to specific parts of the world.'

A panel of experts have chosen their top three winners in the main category of the competition, in association with AccuWeather, and the public now has a chance to vote for their favourite from the 21 finalists - with all winners announced at a virtual event on October 16.  

Those who wise to see the shortlisted images and vote can visit photocrowd.com/wpotyvote until September 23.  

Scotland in the depths of winter can be a harsh place, but for photographer Melvin Nicholson it is one of his favourite parts of the world to visit with a camera. On a cold day in late November 2016, Melvin spotted this fogbow as the rising sun burned off the mist over a snow-covered Rannoch Moor and framed his shot with the 'white rainbow' directly over a lone tree

After much anticipation, Sachin Jagtap captured this 'ring of fire' solar eclipse on 10 June 2021 over Great Beds Lighthouse, New Jersey. The morning of the eclipse, Sachin woke at 3am and drove for one hour to reach the New Jersey shoreline. The cloud was hanging low, but as his photo shows, the eclipse didn't disappoint!

A flock of Canada Geese swim the wrong way down a flooded road in York city centre, past a red pedestrians sign, after the River Ouse broke its banks following torrential rainfall in the UK. The image was captured on the morning of 31 October 2020, by photographer Andrew McCaren who was was keen to show the effects of the flooding

"This thunderstorm unleashed several thunderbolts in the clear sky under the stars. There was no rain, no parasite clouds, just the calm of the night and the sound of thunder - ideal conditions!" said photographer Serge Zaka who drove 300 miles to capture this forecasted thunderstorm on a full-moon night over the famous Bay of Cannes in the south of France

It was a bitterly cold January morning in Glastonbury, Somerset when Michelle went on her usual walk up Glastonbury Tor at sunrise and noticed that there was quite a bit of mist and fog forming below her. As the sun rose, the mist and fog started to flow across the landscape, enveloping trees and buildings, eventually forming a tidal wave type movement in the distance

The Newport Transporter bridge crosses the River Usk in Newport, South East Wales and is essentially a suspended ferry. For a number of years, photographer Itay Kaplan waited for foggy conditions to surround the bridge, and in January 2021, that day finally came

Dani Agus Purnomo captured this misty rainbow amongst tea fields in Tangerang Selatang, Indonesia. Rainbows occur due to the refraction and reflection of sunlight by water droplets in the atmosphere. Also visible in Dani's image is a phenomenon known as 'supernumeraries' the additional, faintly coloured bands on the inner edge of the rainbow (below the violet)

At the border checkpoint between Germany and the Czech Republic, on a cold December day in 2020, Kevin Forster spotted this exceptional halo phenomenon near the Fichtelberg, with 16 different kinds of halos around the sun. Subzero conditions are perfect for spotting optical phenomena and Kevin's picture captured one of the largest halo displays spotted in the region

Pancake Lenticulars was pictured by Stavros Kesedakis, South of Sidney, Nebraska USA. Almost every May, Stavros takes a trip to the USA to chase storms. On this particular day, he and his friend were following a supercell storm that couldn't quite get its act together and produce a tornado, when they noticed that it was forming these two beautifully shaped clouds

Beautiful Mammatus Clouds above Pag Town was shot by Danijel Palcic on the Island of Pag, Croatia. The development of a strong storm over mainland Croatia resulted in this epic vista, which Danijel describes as one of the most beautiful scenes of mammatus clouds he has ever witnessed in his entire life

Photographer Calvin Downes experienced a classic case of sunshine and showers on the Isle of Skye in October 2019. As the sun's rays shone through the clouds over the Quiraing, Calvin's camera captured a rainbow of colours shining directly on a sheep. He had to be quick to catch the light shining on "God's chosen lamb" before too many raindrops gathered on the lens

Craig Boehm has been chasing and photographing storms for the last nine years. Out of all those years and images, this storm in Chamberlain, Saskatchewan, in Canada was the most photogenic of them all. It matched his mental image of a perfect prairie storm, hence the name of his photo, Perfect Storm

Joy of Childhood by photographer Muhammad Amdad Hossain captures monsoon rainfall in a village of Chittagong city, in Bangladesh. As captured by Muhammad, when the rainy season arrives and flood water becomes the norm, the children in the village celebrate and play different types of sports in the water!

Morning Fog was captured by Giulio Montini on a foggy autumn day from a small church on a hilltop in the town of Airuno, Italy overlooking the Adda River. Through the fog and with the help of the trees, you can just about see the winding course of the river Adda, illuminated by the first lights of sunrise

Maja Kraljik took this image of a shelf cloud at around 6am, as it approached Umag, Croatia from the southwest. A shelf cloud is a low-level, wedge-shaped cloud that occurs along the leading edge of the rain-cooled air flowing out of a mature thunderstorm

At an altitude of 4,800 metres, Jiming Zhang took this beautiful image of Sapu Mountain in Tibet. It had been hidden in the clouds for three days, but at the end of Jiming's last day, the clouds finally cleared just as the sun set. It is a stunning image with the orange and red hues of the setting sun catching the mountain peaks, all of which is reflected in the lake

Rainbow Clouds in Tibet was taken by photographer Gesang Jimei who noticed this colourful cloud, called a circumhorizontal arc, when it appeared in the sky over the Sanding Temple in the south of the mountains of Tibet. The beautiful colours lasted for more than 20 minutes and reminded him of a phoenix

On 9 June 2021, Nathan Myrhvold was on the hunt to photograph sprites near Lake DeSmet in Wyoming and was lucky enough to capture these magnificent red jellyfish sprites. Nathan used an extremely fast telephoto lens, aimed blindly at a spot in the sky where he hoped a sprite might occur and took a repeated series of images

During the late afternoon, following a midwinter's day spent hiking in the mountains under a cloudless sky, Angela Lambourn spotted these glorious lenticular clouds. They had developed above the mountains, behind the coastal town of Nerja on the Costa del Sol

Photographer Evgeny Borisov took this self-portrait using a Quadcopter at Lake Kok-Kol in Russia. To capture this shot, he waited for the first snow to fall, which then covered the ice on the lake like a white blanket, leaving areas of open water as vivid streaks in the white