About StormHour & how you can help.

A few Stats.

In seven years on Twitter, we have Retweeted photographers and meteorologists 1.22 million times from our two primary accounts @StormHour and @ThePhotoHour

That equates to 478 times per day, every day for seven years, including weekends and Bank Holidays.

Since July 2016, we have hosted over 500 photography competitions and counting.

We have conducted hundreds of interviews and features with Meteorologists and photographers.

We have published 522 posts and articles on the StormHour website with a total of approximately 340,000 words written (all penned by Mark)

We also run a couple of niche accounts, most notably @MacroHour and @SnowHour

Also, we have an Instagram account, Facebook page, and community to maintain.

Our Partners.

The Royal Meteorological Society help promote and judge the Monthly photo competition and provide a prize for the winners. We have been partners for nearly 6 years and would like to offer a huge thanks for their support.

Costs.

Website – Maintenance and development

Accountancy costs

Hosting

Photo editing tools

Software licences

Scheduling tools

E-signature licencing from HelloSign (Imperative to sell videos online with the correct licence agreement)

Income.

Donations – Our primary income comes from donations and memberships via this website

Video sales – we make a small amount from video sales in a hugely competitive market.

Who are StormHour?

Mark (@StormHourMark). Based in Macclesfield (UK), I run the daily and monthly competitions on StormHour and the daily photo themes on ThePhotoHour.

I also write and build every page on the website and engage with our partners (The Royal Meteorological Society and Rainviewer)

I pay all the bills.

Adele (@StormHourAdele) is based in Manchester. She does a huge amount of work on Twitter promoting photographers, retweeting and curating relevant and exciting content and helping connect with Meteorologists.

If you are being Retweeted by StormHour, Adele is likely the one hitting the big red button. Adele also runs niche accounts (MacroHour and SnowHour). Occasionally she sleeps, but not very often.

Stacey Anne Leeson does a fantastic job of keeping the FB community group engaged and is based in North America.

Foxxeh helps run the Twitter accounts when Mark and Adele finally fall unconscious. Foxxeh is also based in North America and keeps the Twitter timeline ticking over during the British night.

Why?

Having studied climatology at University in the 80s and having dabbled with photography mostly as an amateur but with the occasional professional placement, the idea of running a platform that merged these two interests has always appealed to me.

I didn’t realise just how large the accounts would grow and how the time spent maintaining them would grow exponentially. It’s the very definition of a Labour of Love.

We receive feedback regularly, and it is incredibly positive. As well as giving a platform for people to showcase their photography, which can be extremely difficult, especially if you have a small social media community, I think we provide a haven of calm, tranquillity and beauty in a, let’s face it, occasionally hateful space and in troubled times. We don’t judge people, we don’t argue, and we don’t spread any negativity and people like that.

Of course, we get the occasional tough feedback.

The two most common complaints are:

1. We retweet too much
2. We don’t retweet enough

We’re still trying to strike a balance!

How can you help?

Even a small donation can go a long way to help.

You can donate or become a member by subscribing to this website.

As a member, you will also be entitled to the many extra benefits we offer.

How can you help if you are unable to donate?

If you cannot donate (we understand these are very difficult times), just reading our articles, liking, retweeting or joining in on the photo themes and competition will be more than enough.

Thank you for your support if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to email me at mark@stormhour.com or DM us on Twitter.

Catch up soon and keep taking great photos. Mark and the team.