SkyPix

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

Circulation near Emporia

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This storm spun out of the Flint Hills as part of a chain of mostly messy supercells, carrying with it a load of heavy precipitation and the related baggage of smaller storms dragging along its immediate rear flank. Somehow, unlike with most of several other low-level circulations we saw on this fine day of eastern Kansas storm observing, this strongly rotating and classically formed wall cloud … [Read more...]

Skinny, Tilted Cb Updraft Tower

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Some form of this resilient convective plume had been around for many hours, though it crawled only a few tens of miles in its entire lifespan. It began in mid-afternoon as the "Cheyenne Wells Antisupercell" and outlived a line of "landspout"-producing storms to its south. Its rear-flank core treated us to a nice double rainbow north of Kit Carson. Then we found a motel and restaurant in town, … [Read more...]

Vault CG

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As a spectacular low-precipitation (LP) supercell continued to spin away into the deepening nightfall, it occasionally erupted with a wonderful lightning display. The first was cloud-to-air, this one cloud-to-ground. The stroke here originated atop the visual vault region of the storm: a notoriously productive area for lightning thanks to the intense air motions, rapid charge separation, and … [Read more...]

Visual Vault

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In radar terms, the vault is a region of a supercell downshear from the updraft (usually to the E or NE of the mesocyclone), where large precipitation reflectors like hail arch high over the relatively precip-free inflow air, forming a vaulted reflectivity pattern in cross-section. [Very large and damaging hail sometimes does fall to the ground from there, however!] This is a clean view directly … [Read more...]

Florida Sea-Breeze Convection

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Almost daily during summertime, a rampart of convective towers forms along the sea-breeze fronts over Florida—one near the Gulf Coast, one near the Atlantic Coast. Here is a splendid example of the latter, with a cumulonimbus to the distant north and a neat row of towering cumuli extending southward to very near my location: the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, along the northeastern … [Read more...]

Lone Tree

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A single, weather-worn old elm tree stood tall: a lonely sentinel amidst the desolate chill of the snowy prairie. The ground fog of sunrise hung low over winter's blanket, casting a hint of eerie mystery across frigid stillness. What if the tree could talk? Its stories would put to shame those of even the most grizzled old human weather observer. A violent tornado passed over this spot in … [Read more...]