SkyPix

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

Violent El Reno/Piedmont Wedge

By

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...]

The Stacks of Reynisdrangar

By

Volcanic crags stubbornly stand after millennia of ferocious beatings from the far North Atlantic's icy gales and subpolar surf.   This day, however, the erosive forces relaxed.  A million twinkling diamonds surrounded the sea stacks, silhouetted before a distant stratus deck, rendering their temperament at once placid and ominous.  Still, the old maxim, "Never turn your back to the sea," is wise … [Read more...]

Lightning on Cheyenne Ridge

By

We thought the storm-observing day was nearly over after exiting the backside of an outflow-dominant complex of storms and marveling at its sunset mammatus display.  Instead, in the southwestern half of the sky, crackles of distant thunder appeared from an intensifying left-moving storm moving generally in our direction, while an occasional, tall stroke split the air beneath.  All around, the … [Read more...]

Optical Glory

By

One of the best ways to see a glory is from an aircraft overflying liquid-water clouds. Sunlight is backscattered toward the sun by uniformly sized cloud droplets, in a process loosely akin to the visualization of a rainbow (but with far smaller water particles). When observing a true glory, your eyes always will lie on a straight line between its middle and the sun behind you. Put another way:  … [Read more...]

Bigger than Bicentennial

By

One smooth but decidedly severe hailstone lies atop a fencepost, compared to a celebratory coin milled 34 years earlier. Conveniently, a quarter is an inch across; so this hail reached two inches in diameter, qualifying it as "significant" by conventional definition. Hailstones actually should be measured precisely with a ruler or calipers when reporting maximum diameter to the National Weather … [Read more...]

Wall off Saga Bay Apartments

By

The most intense portions of Andrew's eyewall passed over this spot, stripping a poorly attached exterior wall off an apartment building in the Saga Bay development northeast of Homestead. [This was close to Burger King corporate headquarters, where Andrew's 16.9 foot storm tide is a South Florida record.] After the hurricane, some residents of this building salvaged their belongings by lowering … [Read more...]