SkyPix

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

Core

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This is a classical and well defined precipitation core, punctuating the skies above the beautiful High Plains wheat fields of eastern Colorado. Distinct shafts of rain and/or hail, such as the one just off the left side of the main core, sometimes are mistaken for tornadoes by the inexperienced spotter, but the sure clues include a lack of rotation. The large thunderstorm responsible for this … [Read more...]

Sea Stack ‘n Surf Sunset

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What is a better way to close a summer day than a serene sunset beyond the surf, in the refreshingly clean and cool air of the Pacific Northwest coast?  The stack in this zoom view is Dahdayla Island, a resistant block of rock once part of the coast, but now separated by the ceaseless erosional power of wave action, and in being so, makes a great resting and roosting site for seabirds and … [Read more...]

Wintertime at Mono Lake

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Through all the phases of water here, through all the natural and unnatural explanations for the origins of the tufa towers (they developed underwater when the lake was much higher), one truth stands: Mono Lake in the still of a cold day is a unique spectacle. Not another human being was in sight or earshot thanks to the chill. As I slowly roamed the shoreline, treading alternately through snow, … [Read more...]

Congestus Aerial

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Our plane flew over, around, and occasionally through a large field of deep convective clouds that was erupting over the high country of northern Colorado, on approach to Denver's airport. The flight provided a clean and crisply defined look at this large field of cumulus congestus, with more mature towers and cumulonimbus in the background. The view also was so bright as to be nearly blinding … [Read more...]

Busted Windshield from Within

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Fortunately this wasn't my ride. Unfortunately, it was that of friends who were in a two-vehicle storm-intercept  caravan with me, somehow getting plunked by a rogue hailstone of at least three inches in diameter along the edge of a core.   We were headed back W, hoping to get a good sunset view of the storm's rear--just not through this.  And now, as Paul Harvey used to say: the rest of the … [Read more...]

Solano Mesocyclonic

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A long-lived, cyclic supercell gradually organized over the southern fringe of the Sangre de Cristo Range, taking nearly two hours just to move completely out of the mountains before it headed SE across the high plains and tablelands of northeastern New Mexico.  This big, broad and moderately rotating wall cloud represented the storm's peak organization.  Unlike another supercell to its northeast, … [Read more...]