SkyPix

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

One Last Spark

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This scene epitomizes late afternoons on the High Plains in late summer, but it came about in a rather remarkable way.  The first in a series of supercells, forming over and near Pikes Peak and training off to the adjoining Plains, withered away in somewhat more-stable inflow air, its updraft essentially gone, its remnant core shriveling behind an elevated arcus feature.  The storm had one message … [Read more...]

Panorama of Destruction

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Extensive rubble from assorted houses, accessory structures and vehicles fills the core of the Spencer tornado's damage swath across town.  Wind forces—but especially wind-driven debris of all sorts, flying at speeds of 100–200 mph—battered these trees and stripped them of leaves, some bark, and many small branches.  In the distance (actually just a couple blocks, since this was a wide angle … [Read more...]

Noble Arcus

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Although this wouldn't seem so, the Noble supercell of 2020 still was rotating, at least in midlevels, and would redevelop its low-level mesocyclone again several miles to the east-southeast.  In the meantime, however, it couldn't get out of the way of its own outflow—here signified above the surface by this shelf cloud.  The actual surface gust front usually hits before the shelf edge arrives, … [Read more...]

Against the Grain

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This was the easternmost of four corrugated metal grain bins on the south side of the violent Spencer tornado's 1/2-mile-wide circulation.  The one at left, the middle bin, and its western neighbor, were at least half full, and stayed onsite, albeit strongly deformed in places.  The western bin (almost no grain, not shown) and this one (very little grain) came off their moorings.   Attachments are … [Read more...]

Multisource Storm Light

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On a stormy Badlands evening, and off and on all night to the following sunrise, elevated convection trained behind an MCS and over the top of related outflow.   This time exposure allowed the last vestiges of indirect sunlight into the scene, mainly at lower right but also faintly through the distant core, while occasionally brilliant flashes of mostly in-cloud lighting illuminated from above. … [Read more...]

Smooth Removal

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Before doing marginal F4 damage in town, the Spencer tornado moved from right center to left center, leaving behind a concrete-block foundation with house debris in the basement.  No anchoring is evident; note the smoothness of the top of the hollow concrete blocks.  In fact, every house on this survey which was removed from its foundation was either not anchored down at all, or weakly connected … [Read more...]