SkyPix

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

Bradshaw Wide View with Structure

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As the Bradshaw tornado pulled away northward, the last in a chain of closely spaced, tornadic, dryline supercells came into fuller view, with its classical rear-flank convective and gust-frontal structure.  The scene at this stage looked strikingly like one from a NSSL slide of the Alfalfa, OK tornado on 22 May 1981, which I long had admired for its combination of tornado and textbook context.  … [Read more...]

Crepuscular Highlight

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Storm intercepts sometimes involve time spent waiting on activity to organize, whether or not it ever does.   We could have called this chase a bust when the storms never could stay healthy on the Plains after leaving the background Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  We could have given up, headed toward the next day's target area in eastern Colorado, and missed this.  However, as if a message from … [Read more...]

Road and Cloud Curves

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Another beautiful end to a chase day found me a mile up a High Plains dirt road, over a hill, out of sight of the main highway, in the company of nothing but western meadowlarks, fresh cool outflow, and the departing complex of thunderstorms that produced it.  I wanted to pitch camp here, but already had a non-refundable reservation at a favorite motel in Burlington for the night.  Instead, I … [Read more...]

Grass Fire Advancing

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Zooming in even further to this lightning-started Colorado prairie fire made it seem as if the inferno were practically next to my vehicle, threatening to engulf it.  [I could feel some radiative heat, even though it was nowhere nearly as close as this looks in reality.]  Good thing zoom lenses serve useful as well as artistic purposes!   That said, a slight wind shift toward the inflow region of … [Read more...]

Lower Texas Falls, Vermont

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If you're in summer or otherwise warm, and tired of it, take this opportunity to chill, transported in the mind's eye to this peaceful, enchanting little stream in Vermont's White Mountains.  Though the upper falls of the same sequence are much taller, this lowest cascade was readily accessible to wade right in and cool off sore feet from a day of hiking. 3 WNW Hancock VT (24 Sep 22) Looking … [Read more...]

Foothills Crepusculars

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Brilliant crepuscular rays, carved out by foreground towering cumuli, contrasted themselves nicely against the dark shadow of a remnant anvil overhead, and background storms in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northeastern New Mexico.  This sparsely inhabited area of the High Plains between the mountains and I-25 is seldom traveled by storm observers, given that a dryline sets up well east of … [Read more...]