SkyPix

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

High-Plains Homestead with High-Based Storm

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[Click Image to Enlarge] A former marginal supercell threw its greatest beauty into the sky as it moved into a less-favorable air mass and weakened, spawning a double rainbow beyond an abandoned and mostly collapse High Plains homestead.  A panoramic sweep was needed to show the fullest possible view of this storm, though it cannot portray the cool outflow wind nor the fresh, earthy aroma of … [Read more...]

Big, Messy Mesocyclone

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A low, ragged, broadly, moderately rotating, southeast-moving supercell base pulls tail clouds from the north (forward-flank) and south (inflow) sides, occasionally yielding a briefly tighter area of rotation that made us pay close watch beneath for debris spinups that never were seen.  When the front part accelerated north, we thought tornadogenesis could be imminent, but within less than a … [Read more...]

Southern Appalachians Sunset

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[Part 2 of 2]  The last sliver of the visible sun poked over mountains near the Alabama/Georgia border, and a wavy strand of haze still concentrated along the top of the boundary layer.  Glare had dimmed enough to reduce the dynamic range and allow the rolling foreground terrain of the southern Appalachians to come out of hard shadow.  With a deep zoom into the most colorful, reddened area around … [Read more...]

Georgia Sun Goin’ Down

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[Part 1 of 2]  Gazing to the horizon from the west slope of Burnt Mountain (which, by the way, I was glad to find unburned) offered what may be the best publicly available sunset view in north Georgia's steep hills and forests.  Aside from a cirrus streak evolved from an old contrail, the most interesting feature was the way top of the boundary layer, marked by a layer of haze trapped at the … [Read more...]

OKC “Low Hanging” Wall Cloud

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The OKC supercell of March 2026 had a broad and elongated cloud base, but no consistent and persistent areas of tight low-level cyclonic rotation.  Instead, it kept cycling transient, small, moderate, fairly short-lived cyclonic-shear areas.  Shortly after a younger circulation to the northeast looked threatening but weakened, an old shear zone intensified slightly and redeveloped this wall cloud, … [Read more...]

OKC “Ground Scraping” Wall Cloud

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Ironically backdropping two radars -- FAA units operating at OKC Will Rogers Airport -- a moderately rotating wall cloud rises from very near ground level.  Storm observers often call these "ground-scraping wall clouds."  No tornado was present in there, but a faint and wispy one could avoid visual detection without accessory effects such as power flashes.  Monitoring this compelled some … [Read more...]