SkyPix

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

Supercellular Independence

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A well-developed, somewhat outflow-driven but still surface-based supercell churned across many miles of Nebraska Panhandle grasslands, its ragged wall cloud (center) sometimes rotating very enticingly but never producing a confirmed tornado.  We had observed this one for a rather long time from a parking area on a high spot overlooking the North Platte valley, but this would be our last good view … [Read more...]

More Roof Lightning

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For a multicell thunderstorm in mid–late summer, this was a profuse electrical generator and a beautiful sight to behold, regardless of lightning.  As the high base spread outward, the storm crashed numerous hot bolts between cloud and ground, several that were very long-lived with multiple visible flashes, and a few of which I photographed with just reflexive shutter pushing. Norman, OK (8 Aug … [Read more...]

Wind Farm Tornado: Two Tubes

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For a brief time, the "Wind Farm tornado" bore two distinctly visible tubes, as main vortex reorganized and one of the western subvortices tightened and condensed better.  Chances are, however, other unseen swirls were happening in this broad, chaotic and rapidly evolving tornadic circulation.  In the storm-scale environment, including the broader mesocyclone, the blades' rotational planes pivoted … [Read more...]

Sunset over Skardsfjordur

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Just moments after another uniquely wondrous and ethereal scene just a few hundred yards away, magnificence blossomed across the Skardsfjordur fjord, beyond the lights of Hofn, and over the distant, snow-capped peaks of southern Iceland.  A deep zoom lens allowed me to capture this most intensely colored part of a splendid scene this bountifully majestic northern landscape. 6 E Hofn, Iceland … [Read more...]

Slapout Start

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The messy, seemingly outflow-dominant supercell already had been colorful, with turquoise-toned cloud chasms from which copious rain and hail cascaded all around the old, previously tornadic mesocyclone.  It just didn't look like the storm would produce another tornado, at least up to about 30 seconds before this photo.  We just had finished photographing an abandoned house and were heading E on … [Read more...]

Wavy Clay Slopes

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Despite being many hundreds of miles from today's ocean waters, the South Dakota Badlands are full of waves!  Differential erosion, drainage and deposition are the five-dollar terms for the water-flow processes that lead to undulating surfaces of different kinds of clay.  With their source being horizontal, multicolored clay, ash and silt deposits, the kind of sorting done in heavy rains and … [Read more...]