SkyPix

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

Panhandle Sunset Supercell

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Without any obstructions to block a piece of the view, the southern Texas Panhandle's Llano Estacado offers sky views like few other places.  That's especially amazing when a splitting supercell rides off into the eastern sky at sunset, each member bearing a hail shaft while the updrafts and backsheared mammatus above bask in the warm light of the last rays.  Meanwhile, the indirect glow reflected … [Read more...]

Panhandle Slim

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Backdropping a flooded field (that was definitely mosquito-infested!), a slender supercell updraft pumped seemingly disproportionately large mass into its elongated cumulonimbus anvil.  Meanwhile, to the north and unseen in this view, a young but much larger supercell cruised toward becoming a festival of fine structure.  Fortunately the supercells sucked up far more of the parasites than the … [Read more...]

Canadian Fifth

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After a small multivortex tornado spent a few minutes diving southward in an elongated mesocyclone or cyclonic-shear zone, the entire, merged Canadian storm complex started a major rain dump and surged eastward.  That process destroyed all the original shear zone, but not before this last, northern segment tightened up and pulled a "fast one" in the ragged remains of an updraft.  This brief, … [Read more...]

Northward Surge

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Northward-directed, rear-flank downdraft surge in a cyclonic supercell?  Yes, when the supercell is moving northward, as was this intense storm southwest of Oklahoma City (here seen several minutes before in a wide-angle view from the same location).  It reminded me a lot of a "Stormzilla" scene from the previous year in southern Kansas, also with a large RFD surge, but in a severe storm moving … [Read more...]

Spark in the Rain

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One lone, long spark sliced the city-lit, lightly rainy night sky, in the trailing precipitation area of a small, fast-moving thunderstorm cluster.  Discharges like this originate high in the cloud canopy, where ice crystals dominate the precip type, and charge still can build enough to connect through a few miles of wet air to the ground.  This one appears to hit the building at left, behind … [Read more...]

Mesa-Scraping Wall Cloud

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The second supercell of the day, also forming near Trinidad, rolled east-southeastward along the north rim of Raton Mesa, in a sparsely inhabited area of large ranches and High Plains canyons.  The storm produced a good deal of lightning and likely severe hail and wind.  Though no tornado was confirmed with this supercell, its main wall cloud did roll right over the mesa here, such that an … [Read more...]