SkyPix

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

Sunlit Spray Cloud: Dettifoss

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Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland, and all of Europe.   Much like a supercell on the Great Plains, its sweeping majesty commands appreciative gaze and tempts rapt fixation.  Yet like a big, rotating storm in the sky, it also generates interesting and flat-out cool smaller-scale features on the side that are well worth attention with the eye and camera lens.  This was a continual … [Read more...]

Fallen Bell Tower

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Hurricane Andrew toppled this bell tower westward at University Christian Church (now Christ Center Church) in South Miami.  Not designed to withstand the unrelenting strain of winds over 100 mph sustained for 2–3 hours, in and near the north rim of the eyewall, the rebar-reinforced concrete structure finally fell.  Fortunately, the sanctuary (offscreen at left) was southeast of the tower and out … [Read more...]

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...]