SkyPix

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

Steam Devil Scene 2

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[Part 2 of 3]  Though the fog formation over the lake was continual, obvious vortices with condensation tubes showed up at quite irregular intervals.  How do "steam fog" vortices form?  Here was a flurry of them that appeared to be taking advantage of a narrow corridor of strong cyclonic horizontal shear, then the rotating air parcels formed a chimney-like column stretched aloft by the shallow but … [Read more...]

Steam Devil Scene 1

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[Part 1 of 3]  In early 2021, we had another nice outbreak of "steam fog" or sea fog on Lake Thunderbird, where bitterly cold air advected over the long axis of the much-warmer lake, eliciting moving fog.  Back then, embedded vortices were few and ragged.  This time, I managed to snag several.  Three of the best-defined appear in this series.  This one stretched and bent southward with height as … [Read more...]

Secondary Mesocyclone

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A large, complex supercell that had organized near Lampasas turned even harder rightward, churning south-southeastward along and west of US-281 past Burnet toward Marble Falls.  [Yes, I was chasing in the Hill Country in May, after doing so in April, and would again in June!]  Fortunately, I had left the crowds trying in vain to see inside the larger, nasty, rain-wrapped mesocyclone in trees and … [Read more...]

Lampasas Masses

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A previously disorganized but deep cluster of multicell storms west of Lampasas, in a very moist and favorably sheared environment, coalesced into a large supercell southwest of town, sporting a very wide base.  I knew this storm meant business when it turned hard right, while over the span of around 10 minutes, inflow picked up from a modest breeze of less than 10 kt to a stiff, steady, roaring … [Read more...]

Rotating but Nontornadic

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This behaved much like most wall clouds I've ever seen:  rotating moderately, perhaps briefly fast, with strong upward scud motion from the tail portion pointing to the forward flank.  Yet it failed to produce a tornado.  That was a good thing for some Hill Country acreage subdivisions in the area!  Despite a favorable environmental parameter space of CAPE, deep shear and low-level shear, this … [Read more...]

Colorado Color Bands

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Off to the right of a broad, sparky, tiered supercell, its high-based, forward-flank core region spawned a laminar outflow cloud that paralleled a band of distant sunset light.  All that lay beyond a nicely green, rolling landscape of short-grass prairie so archetypical for the High Plains. 8 NNW Siebert CO (4 Jun 14) Looking NW 39.4176, -102.896 … [Read more...]