SkyPix

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

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...]

Stormy Badlands Evening

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After a supercell I had observed merged with a growing cluster of convection to it east, the entire complex backbuilt, then ran away over the Badlands and into the twilight, leaving behind a beautifully chaotic, blue-hour sky with an occasional flicker of lightning for good measure.  This would become my camping spot for the night, filling interludes of sleeplessness with filtered to full light … [Read more...]

Slider

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In damage-survey parlance, a "slider" isn't a miniature hamburger, but a structure (usually house) that slides off its foundation cleanly, and largely in one piece.  Before plowing through Spencer, the infamous 1998 tornado shoved this wood-frame house bodily off its concrete-block foundation, toward the east-southeast, in the southern portion of the damage path.  Note a lack of evidence of any … [Read more...]

Shielded Mobile Home

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Why would a significant tornado only strip the front end and part of the roof off this mobile home, while leaving it basically in place?  The mobile home was not your usual, unanchored, free-flying wind toy.  It had been secured into concrete footings, using steel cables and ties.  Meanwhile, the unanchored house to the left was pushed almost completely off its foundation, as shown in the previous … [Read more...]