SkyPix

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

Twilight Spin over Joy

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Our third wonderfully structured supercell of the day wasn't truly during the day anymore.  We didn't intercept this storm until after sunset, rounding into position as the deepening cobalt shades of late twilight silhouetted a massive, corkscrewing convective column that dominated the western sky.  I would have been content with that silhouette, captured a time or two before this, to depict an … [Read more...]

Scalding Splash

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Draining across a low hot spot, a creek flowing from Strokkur geyser and adjoining hot springs boils and splashes skyward into the late-afternoon sunshine, and against the dark background of a rare patch of Icelandic forest.  Zooming into the scene yields an antediluvian effect harkening to imaginations of Earth's inhospitable infancy. Haukadalsvegur, Iceland (11 Aug 14) Looking WNW 64.3114, … [Read more...]

Tower-to-Tower Lightning

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This was my first night lightning photo, using a car top to brace a then-20-year-old Mamiya 35-mm SLR.  A bolt hurdled thousands of feet of clear air between the main storm tower and a flanking tower, prompting shouts of, "Did you get that, did you get that?" from Rich Thompson, who was standing nearby enjoying the electrical display.  Back then, I had to wait days until the slide film was … [Read more...]

Sea of Stratocumulus

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Gently convective, yet also partly stratified, this unbroken cloud deck would appear opaque and rather drab from below, with no substantial openings of sunlight reaching the ground—all these characteristics earning the formation the Latin name stratocumulus opacus.  From above, the cloud deck gently rolled like an ocean of cottony vapors, trapped beneath an inversion of dry, stable air through … [Read more...]

Sky Worm

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In a final encore, a tornado emerges from the rain one last time and stretches out, its condensation funnel taking on the shape of a worm against the slate-blue background of the supercell's precipitation area.  This tornado began in Nebraska, within less than two miles of the Colorado border.  Initially a tall, thin, dusty tube (that stage not shown because of driving for position and poor … [Read more...]

Sun Pillar

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Usually, sun pillars (right) develop under thin, high clouds that drop plate-shaped ice crystals (snow) which reflect the low-angle sunlight back to the attentive eyeball.  Here, some of those crystals were being launched by convective clouds—specifically altocumulus formations that earlier offered a beautifully geometric pattern in the sky.  In wintertime, ice-process altocumuli are common; the … [Read more...]