SkyPix

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

Lower Pillar and Subsun

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On a loopy aerial approach to Indianapolis airport. this excellent example of a lower sun pillar, with embedded "subsun", became visible in fine ice-crystal clouds.  The optical phenomenon was very bright in mid–late morning of late winter, and I had to expose for it at the expense of the snow-covered subdivisions below.  Full sun pillars extend below the sun as well, when the atmosphere (instead … [Read more...]

Chadron Delight

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A late-developing, messy, poorly structured supercell to the southwest was all we had to show for a daylong trip from Norman in positioning north for the following, anticipated bigger day...until this brief but dazzling sunset.  Dodging a couple of uncommon but close lightning strikes, I managed to exit the vehicle just long enough to snap a few slides of thus beautiful sky before the window of … [Read more...]

Black Sand Dunes at Sunset

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Low-angle rays of late-summer sunshine warm the northwest slopes of dunes on an Icelandic black-sand beach.  Though the volcanic sand is dark, the surfaces of its grains—smoothed and polished by eons of wind and water movement—reflect light nicely at shallow angles.  Tucked discreetly between sweeping mountain vistas in two directions and arms of the ocean, it’s easy to overlook simple bits of … [Read more...]

Mesocyclonic Mother Ship over I-80

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A high-based wall cloud hovers like a refugee from Independence Day over I-80 in the Nebraska Panhandle.  Like most wall clouds, this one was nontornadic—luckily for the trucker!  Winds strong enough to blow vehicles off the road can occur around and under wall clouds, even if they never spin up a tornado.  For that reason, it can be a matter of life and death to avoid going under wall clouds—or … [Read more...]

Sun-Splashed Bentonite Beds

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Water made this formation, and water breaks it up in two ways.  This is part of a great deal of poorly consolidated Paleocene bentonite clay, in between thick layers and thin lenses of sandstone and siltstone.   The gray clay, which takes on a popcorn-like texture when dry, was derived from volcanic ash that settled through shallow water.  Bentonite swells and shrinks dramatically, depending on … [Read more...]

Storm Towers over Pawnee National Grassland

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Few places on the Great Plains can compete with the Pawnee National Grassland for offering a serene, uncluttered natural setting from which to observe beautiful clouds and storms.  This brilliantly illuminated, multicellular cumulonimbus continue to build at the tail end of a cluster of storms that soaked the higher ground to the north, and offered a different sort of "scenic" view with a wind … [Read more...]