SkyPix

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

Stockton Tornado Zoom

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The Stockton tornado reached its peak size and apparent intensity right here; and it was almost a miracle I was able to capture it on film. I had just changed to a 200-mm zoom lens, and (having lost the tripod clip) braced the camera atop a tilted post. I leveled the camera body with a stone I happened to have in my pocket, hand-cradled the front of the lens, and clicked away. Luckily, I didn't … [Read more...]

Over Atlantic Surf

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This scene features a sunset across the Atlantic, as viewed from North Carolina. Yes, that's right, sunset. How on earth...? Actually, such a shot is perfectly reasonable, when considering that this part of the coast lies west-northwest to east-southeast, and the late winter sun sets at a slightly offshore angle to the beach. After sunset, I was treated to another peculiar scene more common to … [Read more...]

Rising River

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The South Skunk River swelled out of its banks and out of control, rising as rapidly as three feet an hour into the east side of Story City. Within a couple hours after this photo, the river not only flowed against the bottom of the bridge, but across the roadway on both sides. I didn't stick around to observe or shoot that occurrence, or I might have been stranded on that bridge until the next … [Read more...]

Minco Tornado: Wide Angle

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Before breaking off "Storm A", we saw the very distant Fort Cobb tornado under this supercell's base, then after arriving on this storm, a few more mostly fuzzy, short-lived ones until the Minco vortex took root. This tornado featured a scuddy, wildly gyrating condensation form, and underwent rapid changes between cone, multivortex, barrel-shaped, and back again. It was the tenth of 20 tornadoes … [Read more...]

Rotation in Sunshine

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Despite its dangerous appearance, this gaudily hued and moderately rotating wall cloud actually proved to be delicate as eggshells, ingesting dry air and dissipating with alacrity. Soon afterward, the storm finished a rapid occlusion and reorganization process, resulting in an amazing show of colorful rotation across the northern and northeastern sky with sunset light still beamed beneath. … [Read more...]

Draining Badlands

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From Ice Ages to today, the Little Missouri River, and its local tributaries and gullies, have carved and carried countless megatons of loose rock, sand, clay and loess off the badlands of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Some sediment from this marvel of the northern Great Plains helped to build Louisiana, or ended up on the seabed of Gulf of Mexico, before the big dams of the Dakotas tamed the … [Read more...]