SkyPix

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

Tornadic Hide and Seek

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[Part 2 of 2]  A substantial tornado was playing hide and seek, and I wasn't about to go in there and tap it.  One of the better views I had was my last sure look here, shown wide-angle.  It still was hard to make out:  a dark barrel shape on and above the horizon, just to the right of lower center.  Continuity from earlier peeks, combined with centering an obvious rim of fast rotation, and … [Read more...]

Danger in the Darkness

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[Part 1 of 2]  Following our observation of an intensely rotating wall cloud in extreme eastern Wyoming, the mesocyclone wrapped deeply into this ominous HP (heavy-precipitation) form, spawning a stout tornado that traveled 20 miles east-southeastward from north of LaGrange, WY, to near Harrisburg, NE.   You're looking straight at the tornado, roughly mid-path.  Can you see it?  Rolling along a … [Read more...]

Turning over Torrington

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The title here could be a double meaning, but one of them literally was true.  This sensational supercell rotated most intensely right over Torrington, dropping severe hail and heavy rain, before weakening east of town.  The aviation identifier there is TOR, which coincidentally also is the abbreviation for "tornado warning" in meteorology.  Fortunately for TOR, no TOR was needed, and no tornado … [Read more...]

Fiery Sunset Storm Tops

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A brilliant, thoroughly enchanting scene greeted me, on this first full day of a two-week summertime photography excursion to the Great Plains and Southwest.  The aim:  wondrous scenes and opportunities for storms and landscapes.  Goal fulfilled here, on both counts, on day 1!  A complex of severe thunderstorms rumbled off the eastern Wyoming high country into the Nebraska twilight, its dense … [Read more...]

Blasting the Borderlands

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Much like other modes of storm observing, chasing lightning in Arizona often requires many hours of driving and/or patient monitoring before getting into position for the show that may or may not happen.  In this case, I had driven west from Las Cruces, NM, for the first of four days of an abbreviated monsoonal moisture intrusion near Tucson, the afternoons of which were spent roaming the few … [Read more...]

Ghosts of Forest Past

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Mount Lemmon is a 9,000-foot "sky island" of forests, whose summit boasts much-cooler summertime temperatures than the sweltering valley floor below.  Saguaros skirt the mountain's lower slopes while a mix of evergreens (mainly Douglas fir and ponderosa pine) reside above.  Being set amidst a desert, this place is prone to droughts and the occasional destructive inferno.  In June and July 2003, … [Read more...]