SkyPix

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

Pileus Capping Overshoot

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This distant but splendid specimen of double-layered pileus formed atop an explosively convective, overshooting flanking tower for a heavy-precipitation (HP) supercell in northeastern Oklahoma.  Behind the big tower, and above the anvil, we can see a small segment of another overshooting top.  Knuckle clouds roll under the anvil on both sides of the big tower.  This whole scene just before sunset … [Read more...]

The North Faces

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Woods of the Western Crosstimbers stood in a forlorn and shadowy beauty, in the final flurries of a New Years Day snow dump.  Riding a north wind, some of the very wet, sticky snow accumulated on the sides of the trees, as well as atop and beneath.  At the bottom of the snow lay a soaked layer that dripped when shoveled, while even the top parts oozed water when squeezed—testament to both ground … [Read more...]

A Supercell’s Sunset Dawn

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This cumulonimbus had a narrow updraft and forward-flank core area,  opaque enough to see the subtle refracted reds of sunset through both the updraft tower and precip core at right. But it was merging with a larger cell just to its north (right side, out of picture); and the combined storm would rapidly wind up into a tornado-producing supercell after dark.  Just when I thought I was taking in … [Read more...]

Mammatus Field over Wheat Field

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Ripening wheat waved in the inflow of a supercell whose updraft whirled eruptively to my back.  The storm pumped out an extensive anvil with rings of mammatus, and commanded due attention to its rotating base, except for a few moments now and then, when an observer was compelled to look around and appreciate the entire panorama of cloud forms. 6 NW Ryus KS (19 Jun 7) Looking SE 37.5618, … [Read more...]

Lowering Funnel

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[Part 1 of 3]  This funnel cloud was growing vertically, with the condensation soon to rise directly off ground several times in a circulation that was tornadic throughout.  Funnel clouds and tornadoes, in fact, don't "touch down".  That's because the air in them is rising.  What happens is that a lowering in pressure, and/or an increase in humidity of the inflow air, causes the bottom of the … [Read more...]

Two Condensation Funnels

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[Part 3 of 3]  As the original condensation funnel for the Belmont tornado (left) became ragged, with its dust/mud sheath weakening, another formed separately to its north, from a newer (yet also rain-wrapped) mesocyclone.  The older vortex, originating in an earlier mesocyclone, was starting to orbit the southeast side of the newer one, behaving somewhat like a satellite funnel (even though it … [Read more...]