SkyPix

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

Chisos Mountains Stratocumulus

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Unusually moist conditions for a normally hot, dry time of year kept the Big Bend desert floor bounteously abloom, and supported stratocumulus clouds in the top of the boundary layer, where they were penetrated by the Chisos Mountains. Strong surface heating and destabilization mixed these clouds away within less than an hour. That heating also weakened already meager capping in advance of … [Read more...]

Cardinal Winds

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A colorful female cardinal fluffed her feathers to stay warm, against the double misery of cold wind and spits of frozen precip, streaks of which can be seen below her tail. Her presumed mate frequently occupied a nearby position in the same tree, as they alternated between perching there and dining at our feeders. Fortunately, in low-light conditions, the gusts abated just long enough to allow … [Read more...]

Howie’s Quarry

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Severe-weather scientist Howie Bluestein enjoys the stormy skies, readying to shoot his quarry after successfully tracking it across the northeastern Texas Panhandle and the eastern Oklahoma Panhandle. His weapon of choice, as mine, was the camera. Having already produced a couple of tornadoes, including a colorful, rain-wrapped specimen farther SW, the heavy precipitation (HP) supercell came … [Read more...]

Bronzish Rain Light

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Moderate rain, on the back side of a severe squall line, provided the ideal setting for a vast, diffused illumination of a bronze-orange hue enveloping the soaked grounds of the National Weather Center. The glow spread almost uniformly across the sky, and in turn, reflected off freshly made puddles still rippling with the absorption of raindrops. Norman OK (2 Sep 10) Looking WNW 35.1817, … [Read more...]

Early Mulhall Tornado

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"Early" in the title refers to the stage of this tornado, not the hour. We just had finished viewing the dying stages of the "Cashion" tornado to our northwest in faint lightning and artificial light, suspected a new cyclic mesocyclone was forming to our northeast, and rapidly received this confirmation! The Crescent/Mulhall tornado was the 18th spawned by the "Storm B" supercell alone, and the … [Read more...]

Cumulus Mediocris over Fort Davis

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One of the most common cloud types over land or water, whether at high elevation or low, or in between as here, cumulus mediocris (middle-depth) decorate the skies above unstable boundary layers. When convective clouds are present at such depth and density from late morning through early afternoon, as true here, deeper development into thunderstorms may be drawing nigh. In this case, the dryline … [Read more...]