SkyPix

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

Harrisburg Arcus: Right Side

By

An outflow-dominant supercell began to lose its rotational characteristics and surf that outflow northeastward across the pocket of unstable air in which the storm formed.  Since we stood to its northeast, that meant the leading edge of the outflow was directed right at is, offering a spectacular, multilayered shelf-and-chamber cloud stack from the western sky (shown here) to the southern.  The … [Read more...]

Mount Rainier in Soft Clouds

By

In the clearing late-afternoon conditions of a departing weather system, Mount Rainier stands high and brilliantly, surrounded by soft cumulus, stratocumulus and fractus clouds drifting through a clean blue sky.  This southwesterly view of the big volcano is uncommon, thanks to lack of unobstructed vantages, but we found one, and just at the right moment.  Here is a summertime sunrise scene from … [Read more...]

Off 19

By

After producing the infamous Wind Farm Tornado, the newer circulation to its N tightened and headed NE in the general direction of where I had been—from slightly over a mile away.  Given such a logistically unsuitable predicament, I scooted a little over a mile E to watch the area of rotational concern cross freshly repaved Oklahoma 19.  This was the resulting brief tornado at its best:  one … [Read more...]

Last Gasp in Twilight

By

After producing numerous tornadoes in its march from the Red River to central Oklahoma, including the "Wind Farm Tornado" and another near OK-19, this supercell finally had spent all its intense ground-based spin.  Still, even in the fading twilight and increasingly feeble boundary-layer temperatures, a residual wall cloud continued to hang very low and visibly rotate—albeit slowly.  The supercell … [Read more...]

Gusting to Lusk

By

The earliest salvo in a multiple-round convective event erupted as a promising wall of storm towers east of the Laramie Range, but then sent a gust front across the High Plains west of Lusk, capped by a pretty little arcus cloud.  Our resultant fears that the day would turn into a major convective mess, however, were ameliorated by a stunning convective display in the golden hour, south of here … [Read more...]

Outflow-Dominant Supercell

By

Beneath the anvil of a broader area of earlier and ongoing convection, a pocket of residual, unstable air lay, unperturbed by all the activity around.  When two outflow boundaries merged in that unstable patch, a supercell was born.  Alas, the storm was in an environment of decent deep shear but weak low/middle-level flow.  Despite developing a healthy midlevel mesocyclone with inflow tails, this … [Read more...]