SkyPix

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

Twilight Storm in the Wichita Mountains

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Although this storm's updraft was so strongly tilted that its top was way off-screen to the right, it still maintained an updraft strong enough to separate charge--and brilliantly so!  This vivid internal flash outlined a wonderful array of bands and tiers, all transpiring beneath stars that speckled the cobalt tones of a springtime twilight. 5 NNE Cache, OK (23 Apr 14) Looking W 34.7101, … [Read more...]

Bolt beyond Backroad

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This high-based dryline storm blasted a load of electricity through the cloud-ground gap, both to equalize charge on a temporary basis and to let us know that proceeding further down the Oklahoma red-dirt road would be riskier.   The threat there arose not only from lightning, but from just enough rain to turn the road into a slippery mire of thick red-clay mud.   Having experienced that before, … [Read more...]

Big Bell Supercell

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Zigzagging northeastward across southwestern Oklahoma, my daughter and I had observed two supercells merge to produce this spectacular specimen.  A younger storm colliding from the south ran into a higher-based, longer-lasting and cleaner storm, which we had observed down by Hollis. The result of such a blend of storms usually is either the messy degeneration of both, or a more precip-laden and … [Read more...]

Penetrated Stick

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I shot this photo of one of Andrew's smallest documented damage effects 20 years to the day after it happened. The hurricane's winds flung a roofing washer into a stick, somehow, and it lay undisturbed in a corner of a South Miami parking lot until I picked it up a few days after the storm. Along with some framed images from the event, this item has hung from a wall in every one of my residences … [Read more...]

Violent El Reno/Piedmont Wedge

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We had driven down from the north and turned east, ahead of a supercell with a long-lived tornado that was reported to be crossing I-40 near El Reno.  From a position SW of Piedmont, we waited patiently for its approach.  A somewhat rain-wrapped tornado pair gradually became visible immersed inside the hazy murk to our southwest, merging, then expanding quickly into a dust-flinging barrel shape, … [Read more...]