The Beast from the East at the mouth of the Tyne, England

Anticyclone Hartmut (dubbed the Beast from the East (Irish: An Torathar ón Oirthear) was a storm that began on 22 February 2018, and brought a cold wave to Great Britain and Ireland. Anticyclone Hartmut also brought widespread unusually low temperatures and heavy snowfall to large areas. The cold wave combined with Storm Emma, part of the 2017–18 European windstorm season, which made landfall in southwest England and the south of Ireland on 2 March.

In contrast to usual winter storms, Hartmut was not formed as a normal low pressure area along the jetstream. The initial event was an Arctic outbreak (caused by a disordered polar vortex) into Central Europe, transporting not only cold air from Siberia to Europe but also – due to the lake effect – sending heavy snowfall into Great Britain and Ireland.

This weather situation repeated itself on the weekend of 17 and 18 March, but was less severe than on the previous occasion, due to the onset of spring. This briefer cold snap was given the name “Mini Beast from the East”.

Image details
Date: 2 March 2018
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED
Focal Length: 45mm
Aperture: ƒ/5.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO: 560
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International