SkyPix

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

Return Flow over Okie Beach

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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

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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...]

Charged Atmosphere in the Borderlands

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In the short distance between Tucson and the Sonoran border at Nogales, the atmosphere on this day was seriously charged up, and it manifest marvelously  as cloud-to-ground lightning.   Storms that fired in early afternoon on the Santa Rita Mountains to the east lingered there for a few hours before sending outflow across the I-19 corridor to the west, which in turn set off this convection.  Other … [Read more...]

Electrical Lacework

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As a severe thunderstorm complex moved away, it continued flinging cloud-to-ground lightning, mostly less-forked than earlier, while increasing its delivery of "crawler" discharges within the trailing precipitation region.  The delicate and intricate appearance of these filaments belies their deadliness, should one be unfortunate enough to sample any of the electricity directly.  At distance, … [Read more...]

Sterling Sunset in the Desert

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Even though the thunderstorms that produced the brilliantly lit, anvil cirrus clouds dissipated before I could get any decent lightning shots, this sunset scene was a wonderful consolation prize.  Light on the lower cumulus and fractus clouds had to travel through more of our atmosphere to get there, and therefore is redder.  The variation between low and high clouds, in both light and texture, … [Read more...]

Dark Turbulent Arcus Base

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The day's outflow-dominant storm intercept finished, we rolled south, the hunters now the hunted, cruising at barely legal speeds on the interstate highway to stay ahead of the core.  As we surfed the cold outflow winds, we remained for a long time beneath the "whale's mouth" of an uncommonly beautiful, well-defined, slate-blue underbelly of the arcus cloud.  The striking coloration may have been … [Read more...]