SkyPix

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

Red Electric Halo

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Our Wyoming Black Hills supercell produced numerous strobing CGs, a good number captured by our cameras.  This one fired through an outflow-lifted updraft, forming a cloud base halo that got progressively redder with distance from the penetration point of the stroke.  Meanwhile, since the last Daytime Lightning shot, the mesocyclone had produced a brief, low contrast tornado.  Its wall cloud still … [Read more...]

Carlsbad Storm and Moon

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Our rewarding convective day began at lunch and ended after dinnertime, with over eight hours of storm observation (a full day's pleasure) in southeastern New Mexico.  It all culminated magnificently in the appearance of this sunset-hour supercell under the waxing gibbous moon.   The anchoring storm at right had formed south of the original supercell that we had been watching for many hours, then … [Read more...]

Darkening Goodland

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After intercepting the supercell stage of this well-organized, damaging storm complex in eastern Colorado, we zoomed along to Goodland and protected our vehicle from the baseball-size hail and severe outflow (while en route down the Interstate, we deliberately had located a south-facing car wash online).  Then it rolled quickly into town, menacing the citizenry with this dark pall of gloom, before … [Read more...]

Virga Strike

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As another of several consecutive New Mexico storm intercepts drew to a close, we were treated to a colorful sunset framed by lightning from a very high-based thunderstorm.  Numerous strikes came from this linear area of dense virga streaks as it moved our way, their sharp reports of thunder reverberating deeply across the wide and treeless tablelands.  The brisk outflow air behind an earlier … [Read more...]

Sunlit Storm over Wind Cave National Park

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This was a day between intended supercell chases, while staying at a longtime-favorite resort of cabins above Hot Springs, SD.  We decided to head out to a familiar over look in Wind Cave National Park to see what sort of wonderful sunset lay ahead.  A shallow, small multicell storm was cruising fairly hastily eastward across the park, dropping copious loads of small hail; within less than 15 … [Read more...]

Wind Farm Tornado: Getting Organized

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Several tornadoes into this supercell's lifetime, one of which I had seen dissipate before reaching the ridge, a big new wall cloud seemed to devour the turbines at right.  Yet a new menace—in the form of a separate multivortex tornado at lower left—was forming directly amongst another part of the Blue Canyon Wind Farm.  I had arrived late to this NE-moving storm, which turned out to be a blessing … [Read more...]