SkyPix

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

Lunar Corona

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A broken, diffuse altocumulus deck put on a colorful show of nocturnal atmospheric optics during the cool, pre-dawn hours.  Coronas come to the eye by means of optical diffraction (bending of light) through small water droplets of the clouds.  I enjoyed this corona more than most because the cloud layer moving quickly and was nonuniform—in fact, quite chunky—imparting some welcome, ever-changing … [Read more...]

Birth of a Wall Cloud

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Beyond the gypsum and dolomite strings in Permian redbeds, beyond the lonesome Plains highway's hilltop, a nascent supercell emerged from the rim of a messy thunderstorm cluster to develop the first scuddy shreds of a wall cloud, within a persistent inflow notch.  As often is the case, this initial mesocyclonic gestation failed to give birth to a tornado, or even a sustained low-level rotation … [Read more...]

Southern Kansas “Smokenadoes” Zoom

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From this view, these look exactly like what they were:  two pillars of smoke rising from Kansas fields toward a dark cloud base.  A wide-angle perspective reveals the base to belong to a classically sculpted supercell, leading to a scene that might be confused as tornadic by an inexperienced, hurried and/or very distant spotter.  Don't laugh; seasoned storm observers have confused smoke plumes … [Read more...]

Southern Kansas “Smokenadoes” Supercell

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Beneath a nicely structured supercell's rain-free base appeared two suspicious-looking, tilted pillars in the distance.  It didn't take very long for this experienced eye to recognize those features for exactly what they were: not tornadoes or debris clouds, but smoke plumes being drawn into the updraft.  This storm had been extremely active for lightning strikes from its downshear anvil, for … [Read more...]

Elevated Updraft and Mammatus

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The storm intercept was over before it began, in a way, as a gigantic complex of thunderstorms (mesoscale convective complex, or MCS) erupted over much of the Texas Panhandle early in the afternoon.  Its cold outflow pool surged outward in every direction, hosing out all surface-based instability, and causing us to give up on any hope of a tornado or supercell for the day.  Having secured a room … [Read more...]

Hot Spew

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A small, continuous geyser with a heart-shaped vent, and an algal skirt of the most unfashionable shade of green, blasts boiling water and steam skyward, sounding a constant whistle reminiscent of a large tea kettle with crusty crystals clogging the spout.  The mineral deposits in that case are the same basic composition as this: calcium carbonate, reconstituted from solution by rapid cooling of … [Read more...]