SkyPix

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

Convection over Sea Fog

By

In this beautiful coastal scene lies something of an atmospheric conundrum.  Sea fog itself is fairly common, especially over the shorelines of the Pacific Northwest.  Seeing convection of any sort atop the fog, however, was weird, considering that the cool, stable stratification needed for the fog deck seems to contradict the warmth and overturning characteristic beneath cumulus clouds.  The … [Read more...]

Atmospheric Strobe

By

This storm erupted near the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, trekked across the Thunder Basin National Grassland, then plowed into the northwestern Black Hills.  There, between Sundance and Newcastle, on the edge of the Great Plains, we intercepted the complex, often rain-wrapped supercell.  The mesocyclone (distant right, with thick and knobby tail cloud) soon would produce a brief tornado, but the … [Read more...]

Lenticular Depositing Rime

By

Taken 21 minutes after a wide-angle shot of a lenticular cloud crowning Mt. Rainier, this one shows a closeup of the right (east) side of the cloud, which had been rising slowly.  As it climbed, the windy cloud left a deposit of rime ice, visible on the rocky crags high up the mountain's southeast flank. 1 SSW Paradise WA (18 Jul 11) Looking NNW 46.7736, -121.7433 … [Read more...]

Lenticular Cap on Mt. Rainier

By

On this otherwise fair summer morning, Mount Rainier wore a tight hat—a lenticular cloud cap occupying a standing wave that was forced by the big Cascades volcano.  A separate and later zoom view reveals rime ice deposition from the cloud, high upon the volcano.  A special morning, it was!  We duly relaxed and took in the grandeur of the gorgeous scene at every scale, regardless of field of … [Read more...]

HP Supercell Approaching

By

This storm produced a brief tornado over a scenic Plains landscape about 60 miles and two hours farther W, then quickly wrapped lots of dense rain and hail and stayed in a heavy-precipitation (HP) phase the rest of its lifespan.   The ominous, looming sight of such a storm approaching must have left native tribesmen and early explorers feeling inescapably vulnerable and helpless out in these … [Read more...]

Emmeram Spinup

By

Driving to reposition away from some hail, and to get out of a valley for better viewing of an intensely convergent mesocyclone, I spotted a slender, conical funnel atop a small, rotating dust plume—tornado!  Fortunately, a good pull-off appeared on the uphill side of the valley just in time to park, jump out and shoot this one shot of lovely, rolling Great Plains landscape with the tornado barely … [Read more...]