SkyPix

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

Pasterze Glacier in 2005

By

The largest glacier in Austria and in the eastern Alps, the Pasterze drains ice mainly from the peak in the background (Johannisberg, 3,463 m or 11,362 ft), while scraping along the foot of the Grossglockner mountain at left, both in the Hohe Tauern range.  Grossglockner is the highest mountain in Austria, at 3,798 m (12,461 ft) above sea level.  This glacier has been receding in fits and spurts … [Read more...]

Cattails in the Grotto, Minerals on the Walls

By

As a quiet, shaded oasis in a desert path to California, the walls of west-central New Mexico's El Morro, and this cattail-festooned pool below, gave comfort, rest for the weary, and a medium for graffiti, to many generations of native and European-heritage travelers throughout the pre-automotive era.  Since 1906, new markings have been illegal, except of course for the natural kind.  Seeps of … [Read more...]

Flash Flood with “Hail Bergs”

By

Even on uneven surfaces at high elevation, the right conditions can yield potentially dangerous flash flooding.  Here, a heavy and slow-moving thunderstorm with rain and hail cores training on the back side unleashed a torrent through just a few square miles of uphill drainage and across the highway east of town.  Dry washes became very wet washes in quick order.  "Hail bergs", made of loose … [Read more...]

Valley Stratus

By

Rising up a mountain road through the fog and mist, it seemed the cool, quiet and moist stillness, so stereotypically characteristic of the Olympic Mountains, would hold to the very ridge tops and beyond.  Instead we broke out of the top of the stratus deck well below treeline, and hiked around those ridges for a few hours, only to peek over one crest and find that the stratus had risen further … [Read more...]

Steam Fog at Hot Creek

By

Frigid wintertime air drifts over the geothermally heated stream sensibly named Hot Creek, drawing steam fog into the air, and depositing hoarfrost on the grasses above the waterline.  The whole area from my position to the mountains in the background, and for several miles behind me, form the surface floor of the Long Valley Caldera, the other major, active volcanic caldera in the U.S. besides … [Read more...]

August Supercell in Oklahoma

By

An early-afternoon supercell in central Oklahoma in late summer...why not?  If the conditions are right—in this case, barely enough shear, barely enough buoyancy, and a boundary for lift—the atmosphere can do this, without regard for the calendar.   This was one of several supercells in the area on this day, and perhaps my shortest and most unusual storm chase logistically:  in mid-August, just … [Read more...]