SkyPix

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

412 Storm

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Peering superficially from the inflow region into an occluding low-level mesocyclone, the observer first might suspect a tornado in the dark column.  It's just a plume of heavy rain, maybe some hail—part of the rear-flank downdraft wrapping around the near side of the circulation. A subsection of the RFD (the occlusion downdraft) slices the left-rear part of the cloud base nearly in two with a … [Read more...]

1906 Portland Soldiers Monument, Foggy Night

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Mounted in 1906 but date-stamped 1904, this statue memorializes the 2nd Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment, from the Spanish–American War.  It also had an unintended symbolism on this breezy yet foggy night, when the short time exposure caught streaks of stratus through the moonlight.  On the other side of downtown, police were out in force, dealing with loud and occasionally belligerent, … [Read more...]

Cumulonimbus beyond Petroglyphs

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Petroglyphs make a fine late-afternoon foreground for an otherwise ordinary, small cumulonimbus that developed over the next mountain range.  To make this rock art, Hohokam people, who occupied this area around 1600-400 years ago, used stone tools to scrape through the "desert varnish" coating, exposing unweathered sandstone beneath.  The motivation for these petroglyphs, and their intended … [Read more...]

Tornadic Tilt

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This tornado's debris cloud (lower left) was obviously well-displaced from its cloud-base vortex.  So what caused such a severe tilt, how would this affect warning, and where would the tornado be recorded?  Here, outflow from the high-based storm's translucent core, near right edge, kept the bottom of the vortex tube near the same spot.  Meanwhile the parent storm moved off to the northeast, … [Read more...]

Electrifying Mt. Glenn

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As the southeastern Arizona desert day neared its finish, and the stormy sky slowly reddened both itself and the landscape beneath, a brilliant flash blasted Mt. Glenn broadside.  The stroke slammed the mountainside about halfway up, proving once again (among countless occasions I've seen) that lightning doesn't necessarily strike the highest point around.  In fact, not once during this hour-long … [Read more...]

Convective Field Goal

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One fine, toasty desert afternoon in the summertime, a high-based towering cumulus framed itself nicely between two rather prickly "goalposts".   I'll let the reader decide whether this score was worth three points! 14 WNW Tucson AZ (15 Jul 19) Looking ESE 32.2831, -111.2105 … [Read more...]