SkyPix

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

Space Ship Storm

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The tornado outbreak of 3 May 1999 was the most destructive in Oklahoma history, and one of the deadliest.  The Chickasha tornado was the fourth spawned by this classic supercell.  In this wide-angle view, shot on 200-speed Sensia slide film, the tornado churns along almost perfectly centered under the large, smooth and nearly circular supercell base.  Looming ominously over the darkened … [Read more...]

Rapids of Canyon Creek

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Just a few dozen feet downstream from a tremendous slot-canyon waterfall, Canyon Creek tumbles noisily over boulders in the stream bed when it has sufficiently robust flow.   Early autumn typically is the lowest-discharge period of the year for streams in the central Rockies, with the minimal amount of upstream snow remaining from the prior winter.   However, I caught this one on the day after an … [Read more...]

Box Canyon Falls

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Wherever one finds mountains and flowing water, waterfalls are a sure bet.  Following a steep grade from the adjoining San Juan Mountains into Ouray, Canyon Creek carved a narrow gorge—in some places, a slot canyon like this—first through Mississippian Leadville limestone, then Devonian Ouray and Elbert  limestones and sandstones, and finally, slate and hard quartzite of the Precambrian … [Read more...]

Thunderhead over Haze

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Here was a striking example of a young cumulonimubus (Cb) casting a shadow on a haze layer aloft.  This formation over Gem, KS, also offered an atmospheric gem:  iridescence, or prism-like refractive color separation, in the cirriform cloud streaks in the right-center of the picture, just above the near edge of the Cb.  This striking scene highlighted an otherwise nondescript day of … [Read more...]

Black Canyon in the Light: Painted Wall

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Responding about an inch per year to crustal uplift that raised the modern Rockies, western Colorado's Gunnison River has cut a deep, magnificent canyon here, 2,250 feet into a slab of very hard, 1.7-billion-year-old (Precambrian) gneiss and schist.  The metamorphic rock's rigidity and erosion resistance keep the gorge unusually steep-walled.  For scale, those are mature trees down there.  … [Read more...]

Wet vs. Dry

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The striking difference in appearance between a wet and dry surface is illustrated well here.  A section of beach made of solid bedrock—in this case the colorful, cobble-infused, Precambrian Copper Harbor conglomerate—looks much brighter on its dry surface than the wet parts.  Light gets reflected between the underside of the water's surface and the rock material, and gets scattered more … [Read more...]