SkyPix

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

3 Contrails Crossing

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No, this isn't some bizarre, psychedelic rendition of the British Union Jack.  Instead, here was a rare confluence of three crossing contrails, but in sunset light and superimposed at one spot.  Perhaps they weren't so linked when the last was created, but the contrails vary in age, from the oldest, fattest and most widely dispersed (upper left to lower right) to the youngest, narrowest and least … [Read more...]

Morning on Rippled Lake

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Soon after sunrise, the night’s shadow still lingered on the far-shore hillside, with light breaking through overhead clouds to reach the water and illuminate ghostly columns of “sea fog” gracefully slow-dancing across the surface.  A passing boat sent out linear ripples that acted not to disrupt, but instead enhance the scene to a level of marvelous uniqueness. 3 SE Braggs OK (31 Oct 25) Looking … [Read more...]

Dance of Tornadoes

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A "roaring bowl" became somewhat rain-wrapped temporarily, extending into this view, when a satellite tornado formed along the mesocyclone/rear-flank-downdraft interface northwest of the main tornado.  That's the position I've seen all five of my satellite tornadoes originate:  somewhere northwest or north of the main tornado, and all on major outbreak days.  The satellite vortex dissipated within … [Read more...]

Lakeside Lightning

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A tranquil evening at the lakeshore, this was not.  The back side of a right-moving supercell passed a few miles to the northeast, occasionally blasting brilliant sparks through the sky.  The forward-flank core is well-defined at distant rear, and the broad, nontornadic, modestly organized mesocyclone area is behind and to the left of the lightning in this image.  I was glad to see no boats on nor … [Read more...]

Temporary Wrapping

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As this "roaring bowl" tornado translated quickly away from us to the E, and toward the Mississippi River, it finally developed a narrow, somewhat shallow condensation funnel, still much smaller than the actual tornadic winds better represented by the approximate width of the dust plume.   Given the speedy nature of the parent supercell, and the rain wrapping around the tornado (a temporary … [Read more...]

Kilauea Firehose

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Just before the crack of dawn, Kilauea's "Episode 33" eruptive pulse, which mainly had been pumping out a skyscraper-sized fountain from the northern of two active vents, began pouring lava across the crater floor from the south vent (behind the fountain), in two streams:  far left and rightmost.  Meanwhile, the fountaining north vent also overflowed at ground level in two directions of its own, … [Read more...]