SkyPix

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

Campus Mothership

By

After approaching Norman from the OKC area with a stacked-plate form and the oft-fulfilled promise of severe hail, the increasingly wild-looking and more sunset-toned storm drew closer, its slowly rotating wall cloud more a product of strongly hail-cooled air from the nearby core.  As it passed just north through east of campus, the main updraft region's cloud form assumed a "mothership" … [Read more...]

Sunset Asperatus

By

Even within one sort (skeletal) of a cloud type (asperatus, a.k.a. asperitas), appearances can differ monumentally from one event to another.  Take, for example, this versus only slightly less dense (mode skeletal) coverage of them from a film slide shot a few miles from here at sunrise, 24 years before.  The wave amplitude of these is less, but still no less beautiful, especially as a textural … [Read more...]

Wriggling through Mammatus

By

The back side of a severe thunderstorm complex, containing several embedded supercells, hummed with almost continuous in-cloud lightning for almost an hour as it retreated southward from my location, and until the supercells weakened.  Sporadically, the trailing anvil-precip region would fling forth lengthy and brilliant crawler discharges, including this one through, amongst and betwixt ragged … [Read more...]

Last Rays under Hailer

By

The last gasp of a stunning fall supercell saw its wall cloud and main updraft region change from golden orange to this delicious salmon hue as it shrank, wrapping hail-cooled air all the way around and into the mesocyclone.  And so ended a rare, entirely on-foot storm chase up elevators and out some east-facing doors to the very same area of roof where I had photographed wonderful sunrises off … [Read more...]

Ravenna Rotation

By

A wild supercell that had absorbed its predecessor put on a wonderful visual show in central to south-central Nebraska, so much so that I had lost any sense of tiredness related to the long drive up from Norman.    Every stop was a feast on the supercellular smorgasbord for the eyes and lens, including this.  Here, the forward-flank core at right curved around toward me, offering damaging hail to … [Read more...]

Supercell and Prairie Fire

By

A supercell (at distant left) obliquely approached from the north and northwest, coming into view as a grass fire started by anvil lightning from a separate supercell (behind me) continued to reshape into a line in inflow winds.  The fire advanced from its earlier, lightning-ignited ring toward where I had been shooting it, so I backed southward slightly to this vantage, to let the fire cross the … [Read more...]