SkyPix

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

Ute Reservoir Surrounded by Snow

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Flying over the High Plains of eastern New Mexico in midwinter yielded one uncommon sight: a snowfield surrounding a large reservoir in semi-arid countryside.  I was amazed that Ute Reservoir still had as much water as it did.  As for the snow, not only did it make for a starkly beautiful highlighter for the little canyons and arroyos that drain into the lake, but with this area in a prolonged … [Read more...]

Early Millsap Tornado

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After a great show of supercellular structure, the Millsap storm got messy and rainy, but a surprise emerged within that rain—a nicely formed cone tornado.  When the surrounding precipitation thinned a bit, the tornado's debris fan became visible (here), and its parent wall cloud had been cut and occluded to a size not much broader than the top of the condensation funnel.  Fortunately this tornado … [Read more...]

Natural Paint Puddle

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Boiling volcanic mud in the Hverir geothermal area paints a wondrous abstraction of concentric bands and contours, shifting and distorting with each new upwelling, evoking a fluid topographic map or a shape-shifting field of scientific isopleths. 3 E Skutustadahreppur, Iceland (22 Aug 14) Looking ESE 65.6417, -16.8098 … [Read more...]

Sailing off Key West

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The soothing salve of a Florida Keys seaside twilight was almost too calming!  I had to shake free of the mellow mood just long enough to scramble to the tripod to compose this shot, in the precious few seconds after realizing these boats were about to line up so perfectly.  Thus resulted one of my very favorite images of 2009. Right place, right time... Key West FL (5 Jan 9) Looking … [Read more...]

Flash in the Forward Flank

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A brilliant cloud-to-ground stroke illuminated the forward-flank region of a classic nighttime supercell, just about the same time as the Anadarko tornado began to move into town, unseen to our west.  In fact, being a wide-angle view, this flash was much closer than it looks; in-cloud lightning raced across the sky overhead, and the storm as a whole was closing in.  We packed our gear to leave … [Read more...]

Electric Wrap

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Not often do I manage to catch one of these fast little middle–upper-level lightning filaments during the daytime, without a time exposure, but I got lucky here.  Convective plumes running up the back of a tail-end Charlie supercell hosted all manner of flickers and flashes, this one wrapping outside and around one tower like a sparky gift ribbon.  I definitely appreciated the atmosphere's … [Read more...]