SkyPix

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

Windthorst Wind Thrust

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The winds of Windthorst helped this supercell to mature, then sent it off to oblivion.  This is the transition between those stages.   What had been a smaller but better-defined, tightening wall cloud became lower, broader and darker.   The storm was ingesting a streamer of cool outflow air from a heavy shower that moved northward across the supercell's inflow region.   Low-level rotation became … [Read more...]

Islets of the Blue Lagoon

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Suspended, fine silica clay gives the Blue Lagoon its name, though the lake is a warm, power-plant reservoir for a nearby geothermal station.  Black basalt, some covered with lichen, contributes to the strange beauty of the place.  This is the "undeveloped" part, still warm and permissible to enter, but of course very rocky.  Other parts of this lake serve as an internationally popular resort for … [Read more...]

Dry Ledges of Travertine

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Despite being "dry" for many years near their differently colorful waterborne neighbors, the inactive ledges of Mammoth Hot Spring still stand sharp yet ghostly, resplendently frozen in time with travertine textures and mineral stains from the time when they accumulated layers under hot water flow.  In the background, even older ledges show signs of erosion, having lost many of their staining … [Read more...]

Snowy Tangle

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If somehow the snows ever fell in the densest jungles of South America or Africa, it probably would look something like this.  Then again, any event with that result would be cataclysmic climatically for the world as a whole!  So let's just keep this real:  the thick tangle of woodlands and underbrush that typifies the Eastern Crosstimbers of Oklahoma.   Amidst steady north  wind, sticky wet snow … [Read more...]

Twin Forks

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Blasting the could-ground gap just a couple seconds apart, these two furious, staccato discharges left a stereophonic cacophony of booms and rumbles announcing their explosive presence long after their light was gone.  Even closer electrical activity soon would send me back to the vehicle and out of the area in duly safe haste. 5 N Brookville KS (8 May 21) Looking WNW 38.8421, -97.8736 … [Read more...]

Sunset Altocumulus Undulatus

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Brilliant Oklahoma sundowns are nothing new in general, but every one is unique and marvelous as its own composition.  Here, in one gloriously tri-toned sector of the sunset sky, a sharp little field of altocumulus undulatus clouds caught the redder latter parts of the sunset chromatic progression, while the earlier yellows still dominated the distance — all with twilight blue above.  Ephemeral … [Read more...]