SkyPix

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

Flash Flood and the Storm that Caused It

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Water flows through typically dry desert rivers by just one method most of the time: flash flooding.  So it was here, as storms rolled westward off the Sacramento Mountains and onto the desert floor of the Tularosa Valley, ultimately to wetten the northern parts of the famous White Sands dune field.  In the distance at right was the core of the multicell thunderstorm that caused this flooding, as … [Read more...]

Sulphur Sunset 2

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[Part 2 of 2] Now too far below a convective cloud deck to see in deep-zoom mode, the sun set through a sky reddened and yellowed somewhat more than usual, thanks to dust behind the dryline.  Ripples and uneven areas around the edge of the solar disc are produced by lens-like refraction effects in thin, adjacent layers of atmosphere with different temperatures.  [Back to Part 1] 3 E Sulphur, OK … [Read more...]

Sulphur Sunset 1

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[Part 1 of 2] Fifteen years before, not far from here, I closed out a chase season with a similarly cloud-bisected sun view.  Here, I opened a season with an intercept of some otherwise under-performing daytime storms that lined out shortly before, and whose trailing flanking base is visible here.  Even with little to see and photograph earlier, the day improved as it drew to a close, with this … [Read more...]

Southern Arizona Convective Hat

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This was a great way to start a monsoonal chase day—after a delicious lunch with frozen custard in far southeast Tucson, while watching the towers develop.  The biggest of those early convective piles became this young cumulonimbus, thrusting its sharp, symmetric, hat-shaped form into a crystal-blue southern Arizona sky, enticing and inviting closer inspection right down the highway.  The … [Read more...]

Why Weather

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Early in the 2021 monsoonal excursion, I had a few whiffs on getting sunset or evening lightning, but finally found one small, dying cell that somehow spit a little electricity into the sunset light near Why.  Why?  Why ask why?  Just go to Why.  Why?  Why not? 7 SE Why AZ (2 Jul 21) Looking NW 32.2138, -112.6322 … [Read more...]

Deadly Elegance

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These are just three of nearly 80 cloud-to-ground strikes I captured from this spot on a marvelously electrified (albeit sometimes very dusty) Arizona night, as a series of cores passed southwestward across the field of view to my north through west.  Any one of these elegantly patterned channels of plasma could kill any living thing beneath, instantly.  This is why lightning safety is important, … [Read more...]