SkyPix

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

Supercell Seedling

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Already sprouting a small tail cloud and growing a robust updraft base, this very young and increasingly electrified storm emerged from a large mass of mostly midlevel, midafternoon convection dropping virga and light rain, as I've seen several times with late-developing Colorado supercells.    Lightning activity grew markedly in this stage—not surprising considering this newfound updraft thrust … [Read more...]

Sunset Twist

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This amazing sunset scene was a story of perseverance amidst deep disappointment.  Believe it or not, I had to force myself to appreciate it.  While my two-vehicle caravan was busting, watching towers fizzle on a boundary 90 miles to the south in seemingly a better environment, this supercell formed and soon produced a spectacular little tornado, followed by an amazing structure show.  We finally … [Read more...]

Sunset Shelf over Desert Dust

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Of all the growing number of special moments around desert storms, this quickly became among the top few.  After observing early- to mid-afternoon thunderstorms in the borderlands southeast of Tucson, a haboob gathered from their collective outflow and churned westward, building more storms and adding more outflow.  Some of that iterative process of storm formation and propagation raised this … [Read more...]

Rollin’ Skyward

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Even it weakening states, supercells still can be beautiful, as this one was after its peak organization, while entering a more-stable air mass and shrinking.  Still, supercells often linger longer than what the surrounding environment alone would indicate, thanks to the vertical pressure-gradient forces (VPGFs) generated by their low-pressure cores developed in higher-buoyancy conditions.  That … [Read more...]

Lightning Highway

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Four of nearly 80 cloud-to-ground flashes I shot that night split the rainy, dusty monsoonal skies between Tucson and Phoenix.   The second from left did contact ground inside the rain core, and the rightmost was a split single discharge with two ground contacts performed at once.  Through several cores that crossed the same area, the strikes mostly happened in bursts of 2-5 at a time, where "a … [Read more...]

High Plains Rotation

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Here is one of those great parts of the Great Plains: wide-open views, very nearly flat, and devoid of trees.  Many folks see this as boring, or flyover country.   Spread a supercell across its sky, however, and no grander place exists on God's green Earth than assorted patches of high plateau from west Texas to northern Montana.  Each spring, yearning renews as strong as ever for the beauty and … [Read more...]