SkyPix

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

Dry Water Works

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This calm scene bespeaks potent natural violence.  Shortly before mostly dry Cave Creek exits its canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains, a deposited load of botanic and geologic material speaks to the power of the infrequent but intense flash floods that can surge through here.   Stones of all sizes, from pea gravel to boulders the size of small cars, roll along within the water's turbulent surge, … [Read more...]

Desert Mountain Flash

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Following a very brief but beautiful little sunset storm to the northwest, another cluster of convection developed to the north, as outflow ran up a low mountain range on the Tohono Oʼodham Indian Reservation.  This activity didn't last long either, but spit a few "striking" cloud-to-ground flashes into the higher terrain and the twilight. 7 SE Why AZ (2 Jul 21) Looking N 32.2138, -112.6322 … [Read more...]

Brock TX Tornado

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After a protracted, slow-moving spectacle of supercell structure and a couple tornadoes, the former Millsap supercell developed a new mesocyclone very close to, perhaps even somewhat over I-20, which then retreated slightly northward and deeper into the storm before producing this fuzzy, tilted, conical, sporadically multivortex tube.  Drivers were very fortunate that this supercell didn't spin … [Read more...]

Tornadic Trunk

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The Hill City tornado from 2005 is shown here with its ambient wall cloud, a couple minutes before a somewhat more-zoomed shot, using the same unknowingly and unexpectedly grainy roll of slide film.  Still, this supercell offered us a memorable afternoon of storm observing, starting with the eruption of this supercell just east of the dryline, and several miles southeast of our position at the … [Read more...]

In and Out in a Flash

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Later and to the west of a profuse round of in-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning, a few cloud-to-ground flashes decorated the trailing precipitation region of the storms to my north.   This one traveled through a tilted rain core along its path of least resistance.  A short time exposure let in only a little ambient late-twilight light, yet still blurred the moving clouds, creating a rather … [Read more...]

Twin Twilight Flashes

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Twin twilight flashes dipped in and out of a rainy thunderstorm base above a large central Kansas wind farm.  I was struck, not by the lightning (fortunately), but by the two-dimensional symmetry of these discharges above the gently arching skyline of wind-energy turbines.  The surrounding countryside and sky were darker than this, but time exposure drinks in more light, making a deep twilight … [Read more...]