SkyPix

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

Wet Sunset

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On the other side of the sky—and the National Weather Center—from the "Sky Feast" of a lightning-ticked rainbow, a marvelous rainy sunset unfolded.  This one shone just briefly, yet sublimely, in coppery hues reflected off puddles beneath, and amidst fleeting dances of crepuscular rays. Norman OK (27 May 21) Looking WNW 35.1818, -97.4406 … [Read more...]

Shelf Thrust West

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Outflow from a storm complex to the east surged westward into the midafternoon light cast an unusual light across the southwest Texas landscape for this time of day, and textured the sky with the turbulence of the arcus cloud's "whale's mouth" underbelly. 8 SSW Eldorado TX (19 May 21) Looking W 30.7195, -100.6358 … [Read more...]

Unwelcomed Greeting

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Imagine being a guest at a hotel, finally sleeping soundly after the noisy storm that rolled past during the previous night, then going outside in the morning to find this scene where your car's back window had been.   Wind-driven, two-inch hailstones commonly broke back and side automotive windows in this area of town, at a much higher rate than front windshields, which are composed of stronger … [Read more...]

Third Warm-Frontal Tornado

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[Part 3 of 3]  Though not the last one (this supercell would spawn two or three more tornadoes after a substantial time gap and major evolution in the storm), this was the final, closest and shortest-lived tornado of a closely associated, three-vortex episode that occurred when the storm initially interacted with a warm-frontal zone.  It developed in a separate area of the elongated updraft base … [Read more...]

Second Warm-Frontal Tornado

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[Part 2 of 3]  The second of three quick-succession tornadoes produced by this warm-frontal supercell started three minutes after the demise of the first, in the same mesocyclone, but with an obvious gap in space and time.  Here shown at its most robust, mature stage, it exhibited evidence of vortex sheathing (inner and outer vortex tubes).  The low cloud base made these tornadoes look bigger than … [Read more...]

Warm-Frontal Multivortex

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[Part 1 of 3] Shivering in howling easterlies with a measured temperature of 61 degrees F, this is not normally the scene that would come to mind:  the bowl-shaped condensation funnel of a mature tornado, with sporadic subvortices swirling beneath.  Yet there we were, and that it was.  The parent supercell was the "Tail-End Charlie" of three that formed south of a warm front in the Dalhart, TX to … [Read more...]