SkyPix

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

Crawler in Closing Core

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Following a little bit of productive daytime lightning action, right before sunset, the storms kept producing sparks intermittently, as they closed in from multiple directions.  By this time I actually was in the car for safety, controlling the camera remotely, as a wild flash of crawler lightning stabbed jaggedly through the northeastern sky.  Within a couple minutes, rain started falling, which … [Read more...]

Wellfleet Stovepipe

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Condensation of the long-lived and high-contrast "Wellfleet tornado" widened from a classical elephant-trunk shape to near its greatest apparent breadth during this stage, curiously, soon before dissipation.  What had been very little precipitation around the low-level mesocyclone increased visibly, wrapping mainly northwest to southwest of the vortex in graceful-looking, curvy shafts, as the … [Read more...]

Twilight Highlight of the High Plains

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Ghostly in form, deadly in electrical threat, a High Plains supercell that gave me one of the most spectacular skies I've ever seen continued to dazzle through early twilight in extreme eastern New Mexico.  The tornado risk on this day was fairly close to zero, but after the show this storm put on, lasting even deeper into the evening as it moved into the giant road void of nearby Oldham County, … [Read more...]

Etowah Night Wedge

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One of a long series of erratically moving tornadoes produced by the "Cole-Shawnee" supercell, this fourth of the surveyed "Etowah" tornadoes was briefly one of the best-defined visually, manifesting as a genuine wedge in the deep woods of extreme eastern Cleveland County.  Given the wobbly and often strongly deviant motions of this storm's mesocyclones and accompanying tornadoes, I kept good … [Read more...]

St. Onge Arcus

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Don't get fixated on the mesocyclone region, even if it is worth intense attention as this storm's was, and ignore strikingly beautiful formations in other directions!  Fortunately that advice is a little easier to follow when the other spectacular part of the storm is directly connected.  This sharply layered, tiered arcus extended southwestward as part of the rear-flank downdraft, making a … [Read more...]

Roaring Bowl

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The first tornado from the future London, KY supercell formed just to our WNW in southeastern Missouri, whereupon we got out of the way and let it cross the road behind us.  The roar continued, as did the hook rain and unavoidable few more drops on the lens filter, as it sped eastward through somewhat wet, somewhat dusty fields, remarkably refusing to condense a funnel below the cloud-base … [Read more...]