SkyPix

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

Dryland Rainstorm

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A heavy-precipitation, left-moving supercell had crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico, delivering severe wind, hail and flooding rains before merging with growing convection along an old outflow boundary to its east.  That resulted in a short-lived but intense little storm complex, sending heavy torrents as temporary waterfalls across the stony countryside near the Pecos High Bridge, and down the … [Read more...]

Well-Grounded Circuit

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This was a good way to start my 40th year of shooting lightning, having gone full circle to less than 200 yards from the spot where I captured my first lightning photo on film.  A lot has changed since 1986 on the OU campus:  built, torn down, built some more.  The parking garage from which I shot this didn't exist until the years began with 20.  But the same atmosphere does, and the same … [Read more...]

Postcard from a Dead-End Road

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Hoping to get a closer look at a supercell that was traversing a large road void, we took a net northwesterly back road that "went through" to an eastern escape option on the maps, only to find it paved, then gravel, then dirt, then gated, chained and padlocked with a hand-painted DEAD END sign attached.  Normally it's a treacherous situation to be in front of a fast-moving, outflow-dominant … [Read more...]

Wrapped and Rollin’

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Already an outflow-driven, heavy-precip storm by the time it approached Menard, this storm enlarged, turned hard right (southeast), and became deeply rain-wrapped, appearing on radar in a form that sometimes earns the nickname "landcane" for its spiraled arms.  One of those was the dense, intense precip arc seen at left, the rear-flank core, full of deep turquoise tint, large hail and strong to … [Read more...]

Herington Highlight

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Ratcheting southwestward along a backbuilding line, we finally found the "Tail-End Charlie" convection, a supercell that was being undercut by the collective outflow from the combination of itself and downshear storms.  Regardless, it made for a nice, soothing scene for a vanload of tourists and their guides in the "golden hour" of warming pre-sunset light, on the western rim of the magnificent … [Read more...]

Brief but Beautiful

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After producing several nonsupercellular "landspout" tornadoes, and amid a late-afternoon enlargement of low-level and deep-shear vectors in the storm's mesoscale environment, a large-based multicell complex contracted to a supercell for just a little while.  Even here, at its peak structure, uniquely beautiful as all Great Plains supercells are, the storm started to undercut itself with outflow … [Read more...]