SkyPix

A digital photographic storybook of clouds, weather and water by Roger Edwards.

Flashes Flung Far

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Tendrils of cloud-to-cloud, in-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning flew every which way around the upper reaches of an evening supercell, whose main updraft column tilts from lower left to middle.  Had this storm been tornadic, I might have regretted my choice to back off for enough distance to capture more of the phenomenal light show.  Maybe!  Fortunately, it was not, and the supercell it provided … [Read more...]

Oncoming HP Load

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Heavy-precipitation (HP) supercells can take many forms (most of them rather menacing in appearance):  behind big arcus clouds, drum-shaped, deep and dense with great structure, spiraling in form with wrapping tail and wall clouds, with an embedded little tornado visible, with an embedded big tornado visible, with a tornado playing hide and seek and sometimes a peek, pastel-festooned in the sunset … [Read more...]

No Grace for Gracemont

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Here was a peculiar combination of a truly hybrid shelf and wall cloud that couldn't decide which it wanted to be.  A tremendous precipitation surge had descended through the back side of the supercell, then started to wrap through the southwest side of the low-level mesocyclone, accelerating the storm but not completely undercutting the original low-level circulation, whose cloud material still … [Read more...]

Dumont Dust Tube

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The "Dumont" tornado seldom, if ever, had a condensation funnel, but it lasted ten minutes while gradually lofting dust toward the rotating, scuddy cloud base above.  I was unsurprised and glad to learn that this vortex produced no known damage, in a sparsely populated area of large ranches and few structures.  Despite dozens of chases and even more supercells seen in these parts, the vast area … [Read more...]

Prairie Fire Response

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After midday dryline passage, a fire began a couple miles to the south-southwest, its embers blowing into a swath of dry, tall grass from the previous growing season.  Fires in the southern Great Plains can race out to tens or hundreds of thousands of acres within just a few hours under such dry and windy circumstances, in a severe drought, with crispy fine fuels.  Fortunately, two factors saved … [Read more...]

Twisted Blasts in the Blue Hour

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After the "slender sunset supercell" tattooed itself onto my memory for life, the storm very slowly weakened into the deepening twilight blue, while another developed on its outflow boundary to the west.  Nonetheless, when it came to generating electricity, the little storm that could, most certainly did.  I lost count of how much lightning it flung every which way from its middle to upper … [Read more...]