SkyPix

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

Sticknet to the Outflow

By

A "sticknet" probe sampled the last few minutes of southerly pre-storm breezes blowing off the waving field of wheat, before its anemometer would get whipped furiously to a right angle by the intense gust front approaching in the background.  This was one of several portable, rapid-deployment weather stations of its kind placed alongside the highway to sample the gust front and subsequent … [Read more...]

Glorious Sunset on Multiple Levels

By

Even on the High Plains, it's hard to find truly remote and essentially unpopulated areas of silence, solace and solitude, where the only noises other than the cool, moist breeze and one's own breathing are the occasional calls of the meadowlarks and distant coyotes.   This was one such moment, set among the wondrous aroma of moistened earth in a climatologically dry place.  No other vehicles or … [Read more...]

Emulating a White Sands Night

By

This starkly desolate view could be from an alien planet of extreme cold, where the "sand" is water ice or frozen CO2 grains piled into dunes.  It could be our own White Sands National Monument under moonlight.  The latter is closer to the truth, but not quite there.  Since I couldn't go on a brightly moonlit night, I took advantage of the fortuitous opportunity to emulate that condition.  How?  … [Read more...]

Severe Wind Soon

By

As they often tend to do, a heavy-precipitation supercell became outflow-dominant and started to evolve into a severe, forward-propagating mass of wind and rain.  In the transitional phase, some structural features of the supercell remained, such as the midlevel cloud deck and tail feature above, with strong inflow still feeding the storm and its low-pressure area.  Meanwhile, a fierce … [Read more...]

Return Flow over Okie Beach

By

Intense return flow from the south whipped cumuliform clouds in the upper boundary layer into ragged fractocumulus shards, while weak storms tried but mostly failed to develop along the dryline to the west.  A little data, a little fishing, a little swimming...why not?  Even though this day ended up with no storms of consequence for me, there are worse places to wait for them to develop.  I'd … [Read more...]

Low ‘Bow

By

What this rainbow lacked in height, it made up in stunning clarity and brilliance, made possible by the combination of strong direct sunshine, dark-storm background, and clean air on the back side of a scuddy, outflow-dominant, post cold-frontal supercell.  Every primary rainbow's outer red ring would be a full circle spanning 42 degrees of view, centered exactly opposite the sun, if the Earth's … [Read more...]