SkyPix

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

Westward Tornadic Retreat

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After two other nighttime tornadoes between Union City and Yukon spun into oblivion (dissipation and/or rain), the Union City cone emerged from rain in an older mesocyclone, and began retrograding westward (leftward).  If someone looks only at a map of the tornado tracks, this one may appear to have translated opposite reality.  Why such a peculiar path direction in an eastward-moving parent … [Read more...]

Second North Platte “Spout”

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The second of a series of nonmesocyclonic "landspout" tornadoes, from a big-based multicell thunderstorm that later evolved into a supercell, appeared a couple minutes after the first one dissipated, and slightly farther northwest.  This was a classic "spout" form, with a dust tube concentrated inside thinner dust centrifuged out of the vortex earlier.  A very thin, diffuse tube to the right (N) … [Read more...]

Bennington Cone Stage

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The legendary Bennington vortex of 2013 started with a classical condensation cone under a wall cloud, with active, fast-moving and scuddy inflow tail pointing toward the forward flank, as I've seen with many significant tornadoes.  All of that was happening under a heavy-looking, wet, low, somewhat hazy ambient supercell base, unsurprising for a high-CAPE, high-dewpoint supercell latched into a … [Read more...]

Central Kansas Pyrocumulus

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Agricultural burning, that got a little bit out of control, raised a plume of smoke in the area that I could see for about 20 minutes before stopping at about the nearest reasonably accessible view.  Episodic pyrocumuli (flammagenitus) bubble over the top of the plume whenever pulses were hot and/or moist enough to raise the pyroconvective column to a condensation level, on an otherwise fairly … [Read more...]

Ropesville Rope Out

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Even though this was somewhat closer to the town of Meadow, it wasn't far SW of Ropesville either.  I like the latter name better, as it describes what was happening.  Still raising a thin swirl of dust (clearly not over a furrowed field as in the foreground!), this dying tornado had been deeply wrapped in rain for, "I don't know how long."  As has been true many times before, including earlier … [Read more...]

Tahoka Twilight

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Convinced not to follow a long-lived supercell by both late time and a more-stable environment to the east of the Caprock, I watched it recede to the distance, while experiencing some of the soothing joys of a High Plains twilight:  aromas of moist and rain-freshened earth, the caress of gentle breezes in cool outflow, final singing of western meadowlarks, and of course, the throbbing of light in … [Read more...]