SkyPix

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

Hot Plume Backsheared

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As the "Noble" fire grew and blew across ever-larger areas of southeastern rural Norman, the upper reaches its pyroconvective plume supported persistent growths of deep cloud towers.  Wildfire plumes can generate one of the two most common kinds of flammagenitus clouds, the other being from eruptive volcanoes.  At times, the entire fluid body of smoke and condensation looked like a miniature … [Read more...]

Churning Closer

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The Aurora tornadic vortex was both expanding and approaching, moving directly toward me while stripping countless tons of topsoil from the field occupying the second half-section to our west.  This normally would be a rather unsettling situation for most observers, yet I was fully aware and at peace with it.  See, the car was pointed east, the engine running well, several escape routes available … [Read more...]

Night Freeze

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Quiet but for the sporadic crackle of icy tree limbs in a muted breeze, the OU campus bore a distinctively transient manner of nocturnal illumination, sparkling from thousands of points of reflection above ground.  Ice from a freezing-rain event coated objects above the surface, down to grass blades; but streets stayed too warm for the liquid to freeze. Norman OK (22 Dec 13) Looking W 35.1842, … [Read more...]

Frozen Wonder

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Strange shapes sparkle on a sunny winter's day:  four regularly spaced drip points down the stick from the main path for water running off a tree during an ice storm.  The direction of the main icicle slowly changed as the limb got heaver and heavier, leaning down with progressive coats of ice, rendering a sickle-shaped effect. Norman OK (24 Dec 13) Looking N … [Read more...]

Black Sand and Surf of Dyrholaey

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Sharp contrast marks the surf line of the sub-Arctic North Atlantic against the black volcanic sands of southern Iceland's beaches.  A wide view of the Dyrholaey coast shows the context of this amazing, starkly beautiful beach as a product of volcanic debris deposited by huge, eruption-triggered glacial floods. 3 WSW Vik, Iceland (16 Aug 14) Looking WNW 63.4032, -19.1318 … [Read more...]