SkyPix

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

Steam in the Fog

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It seems post-apocalyptic:  this heat-blasted landscape of conifer skeletons, rising steam, bare and mineralized ground, in a sunrise light that reminds of artists' conceptions depicting primordial planets.   Yet the scene is readily available in some form, on most cool mornings in the Lower Geyser Basin.   Locally heavy rains the day before had left the ground saturated also, contributing to an … [Read more...]

A Peculiar Experience

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Almost immediately behind a powerful complex of thunderstorms, enough instability remained above the cool, moist, somewhat hazy outflow air near the surface to generate still more deep convection.  One can tell that this towering cumulus clump is somewhat starved for buoyancy by its soft, translucent appearance, and the hole almost directly centered on the cloud mass.  We were too bedazzled by the … [Read more...]

Genoa Spin

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A two-dimensional image doesn't begin to convey the intense, furious rotation that was going on in this wall cloud.  The formation, hovering over Interstate 70 in eastern Colorado, spun so fast that I thought it would produce a big tornado anytime.  This was shot wide-angle; so we were rather close to the action.  At least as fascinating as the rapid motions, I found that the menacing black base … [Read more...]

See Six States and a Storm

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On the outskirts of Genoa (Colorado, not Italy) resided a novelty and antique shop that claimed a view of six states from atop its observation tower.  The friendly,  eccentric old gentleman who ran the place, Jerry Chubbuck, was glad to give us storm observers the grand tour as we waited for one of two supercells—one to the northwest (shown here), and another one to the west, to become dominant … [Read more...]

Skjalfandafljot River: Rock Cutting

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Downstream from the famous cascade Godafoss, eyes often miss the stark beauty of the Skjalfandafljot River, its beautiful, glacial blue waters slowly carving a canyon through hard basalt deposits common to the entirely igneous geology of the island.  As long as this channel doesn't get filled by more lava—an uncertainty for certain—the river eventually will cut a gorge several hundred feet deep, … [Read more...]

Erick’s Electrics

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After a flaming sunset began the real "chase day," we followed a cluster of storms as it loped through the eastern Texas Panhandle, intermittently shooting forth sizzling jabs of lightning.  Its final electrical encore blazed through the skies over Erick, a dot on the western Oklahoma map also located just to the right of this photo.  Duly satisfied with what we had salvaged from what had been a … [Read more...]