SkyPix

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

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...]

The Stacks of Reynisdrangar

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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

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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

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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...]