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The curse of Northern Europe

Clouds
2026 | Cork, Ireland
Stratus Clouds over a parking lot in Cork copy

Eternal grey.

If something can promote winter depression, stratus clouds will do the job. Specifically stratus clouds combined with an atmospheric high-pressure system. It’s those days with little wind, perhaps a few moments of misty rain and no direct sunlight for days.
 
Days upon days of overwhelming cloud cover. People will note how “grey” it has been after a while. The clouds themselves can be eerily uniform and featureless like a blank paper.
Above stratus clouds

From the sunny heights of a cruising airplane, stratus clouds appear as flat “duvets” of fluffiness stretching into the horizon. This image is from a flight over Norway with some higher terrain in the distance peaking above the clouds.

Stratus clouds can occur all over the world, but are especially common in regions north and south of the equatorial region. North Atlantic regions and states like the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Ireland and Svalbard have some of the least days of sunshine annually due to the persistent presence of stratus carpets: loooong days with cloud cover and mild weather.
Anatomy of stratus clouds
They’re annoyingly shallow, meaning that even when a stratus carpet stretches for thousands of kilometres, they may be disproportionately thin from base to cloud top. In the picture above, the cloud layer is only a few hundreds of metres in vertical thickness.
Stratus clouds over Cork

High-contrast landscape photography is not ideal in stratus cloud-conditions. However, for portrait or any sort of photography that requires flat lighting, this weather is ideal.

Any cure to the stratus curse?
 
Get tablets with vitamin D, venture outside as much as possible, chill with a candle and a book at home, socialise with nice people and have a look at satellite images to keep an eye on when the carpet lifts or blows away.
Skull artwork in Cork

Creative artwork by unknown artist.

A bit about me
Hiking in killarney

Thomas Heising here!

I’m originally from Denmark, but now living in Cork, Ireland and working with visual science communication. You may have found this post because you were curious about this page or wanted to know more about the topic at hand – in any case: welcome.

There are more writings, visuals and videos around here about geology, the weather, our planet, Ireland, Denmark and other things that interest me.

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