SkyPix

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

Downward-Pointing Crepusculars

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We often see crepuscular rays with an apparent upward aim.  In this case, the chunky young anvil from a nascent supercell spread across that part of the sky containing the sun, part of which can be seen through a hole in the cloud.  As with other crepusculars, the rays actually are parallel, but seem to spread away from each other due to a bit of optical trickery:  our brain's (or the camera's) … [Read more...]

Electric Loop

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During the trip to see the total solar eclipse, and on the day we left Oklahoma, I closed out a fine travel day by intercepting an elevated, nighttime storm over the Platte River.   It prolifically flung cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning, including countless loops from cloud to air to cloud, of various sizes and shapes.  Five months before, we had used this infrequently traveled bridge to … [Read more...]

Golden Streaks

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One of the advantages of night shifts in the office park is seeing quiet sunrises from high atop, when time permits a quick break to zip on up.  Fortunately that was the case here, as two rooftop observers were blessed with this sight:  a streaky plume of convective cirrus, producing a small mammatus belt and trailing virga across the northeastern sky, spotlit by a slit of sunlight evading cloud … [Read more...]

Circumhorizon Arc

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We had arrived in the general target area of marginal afternoon storm potential, and decided to explore parts of the ironically named and almost wholly anthropogenic Nebraska National Forest.  Right after leaving, while cruising toward Thedford and a future day's rendezvous with supercells, an odd color effect that I couldn't quite peg appeared among thin cirrus and cirrocumulus in the southern, … [Read more...]

Petrified Forest Landscape

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The Petrified Forest sits in the badlands of a dry, high desert, but its presence has everything to do with the action of water.   Around 225 million years ago, in the late Triassic, mighty floods washed logs into low swales, burying them in sediment that later hardened to rock—the Chinle formation.   Over time, wood cells filled with silica that had been dissolved in hot, mineralized water, … [Read more...]

Lava Lake Glow on Low Clouds

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As the evening deepened and stratus clouds lowered over Kilauea caldera's highly active Halemaumau Crater, the lava lake rose, at times splashing distant gobs of fountain lava above the plane of the visible rim.  That was an uncommon sight, and one we were fortunate to witness.  The distinctive orange glow of the lava shone brightly here, both in the stratus and in the flammagenitus cloud plume of … [Read more...]