SkyPix

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

Exploding Hailstone

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Severe hailstones can shatter when striking pavement; and I was fortunate enough to capture the split second when one did just that, disintegrating violently into a radial spray of icy shrapnel.  This might be the only known still photograph of a hailstone explosion during a storm.  Even if not, it's an extremely difficult event to capture!  The scene reminds me eerily of artists' depictions of … [Read more...]

Martha’s Arcus 2

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Even within the span of a few minutes, and all around the same feature, storm light can change dramatically.  Compare this with our first view--similar, different, and sublime!  The short passage of time has allowed some shifting of subcloud light by the differential motion and shape changes of the arcus cloud's base and a background cell.  Meanwhile the cool tints in the deep cloud lost the … [Read more...]

Martha’s Arcus 1

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Making lemonade from lemons, to borrow from a hackneyed cliche, this supercell wasn't very photogenic until it became outflow-dominant and heaved forth a cold gust front, resulting in this pretty arcus cloud on the storms' southern flank.  Late-afternoon sun angles help photographic light not just directly, as with the cloud-base illumination, but indirectly, as in the enrichment of cool tones … [Read more...]

Bennington Wall Cloud

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The infamous Bennington supercell already had spun up a brief, small tornado from the cloud-base area at left rear--a vortex visible to us in the distance while we were in transit westward.  We had just arrived at this spot in time to shoot a few wide-angle shots like this of the marvelous, slow-moving storm anchored to an old, stationary frontal zone.  Cloud motions curved inward toward a … [Read more...]

Wild Horse Storm

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An outflow-dominant supercell sailed over the Colorado grasslands, offering yet more of the fantastically textured compositions of cloud forms and light that lure me onto the High Plains every spring. The suspicious-looking, lowest cloud area (just to the right of lower middle) was very slowly rotating, drawing up some rain-cooled outflow air that also appeared to contain dust, but didn't tighten … [Read more...]

Fractocumulus over the Washington Cascades

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The snow-capped crags of the high Cascades bask under sunshine and fair conditions on a pleasant, dry summer day.   Still, just enough moisture lingered about for the orographic lift to boost some parcels to saturation and form ragged-bottomed cumulus fragments--fractocumulus. The presence of a turquoise-colored cirque lake at middle left completes this look at all three phases of the water … [Read more...]