SkyPix

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

Colorado Crawlers

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As night fell across the Great Plains of eastern Colorado, what had been a fairly amorphous, high-based band of thunderstorms latched onto a moist low level jet and organized quickly.  Lightning filaments began flying every which way under the trailing rain and anvil canopy of the thunderstorm cluster, putting forth a show of "crawler" lightning that rivaled that of many larger, better-organized … [Read more...]

Illuminalia

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Those (things or events) that illuminate—that's how the title would translate from Latin.  How simply fitting it is, then, to describe this sunset scene which blessed us at the end of what had been a fairly underperforming storm day in the Great Plains of eastern Colorado.  More was yet to come, too, in the form of a wonderful electrical display in the opposite half of the sky. 3 ESE Ft. Morgan … [Read more...]

Cirrus Blend over Mt. Rainier

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Two tall conifers and a sky densely feathered with cirrus clouds frame the massive, ice-capped bulk of America's loftiest volcano.  The cirrus streaming overhead could be classified as a mix of uncinus (mare's tail), spissatus (sun obscuring, thick) and fibratus (fibrous tufts).  As in many hybrid cloud categories, the transition or delineation between them isn't razor sharp, and can be argued.  … [Read more...]

Streamwise

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One of my favorite Great Plains watercourses is the Niobrara, winding east from the volcanic ash beds of eastern Wyoming across most of northern Nebraska before its swampy union with the mighty Missouri River.  The stretch through the Nebraska Sandhills and the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, the Niobrara National Scenic River, regionally draws recreational interest for tubing and … [Read more...]

Windfall in the Rain Forest

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Severe winter-storm winds sometimes rake through the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula, blowing down numerous trees, especially along exposed western slopes near rivers and other open areas.  These trees were fairly recent casualties—likely from sometime in the the previous 2-3 winters, given their fresh appearance, minimal rot and incomplete coverage of overgrowth.  These ultimately would … [Read more...]

Vortex Within

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The tornado to right of center, which we barely saw with our eyeballs, was buried in heavy precipitation wrapping around the mesocyclone, and was located northeast of the bulk of rain and hail with this supercell.  Such an orientation of a storm's "business end" is actually rather common in HP (heavy precip) supercells, which may assume a figure-9 pattern to the most dense precipitation.  When HP … [Read more...]