SkyPix

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

Sunset Elements 2

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[Part 2 of 5]  When blazing sunset scenes splash themselves across a large fraction of the sky, then last for many minutes as cloud forms evolve, the variety of views and compositions in one episode becomes almost endless, especially with either eyes or camera actively performing zoom, pan and pivot maneuvers.  The streaky, rippled texture of the "lower high cloud" form sneakily nestled a contrail … [Read more...]

Sunset Elements 1

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[Part 1 of 5]  A long and brilliant sunset show—even by already-lofty Oklahoma standards—began a couple minutes before this, then blossomed into a long peak phase.   What made this stage remarkable wasn't just the great coloration, nor even the serendipitously wild fan shape off the central source that evoked an explosion of light, but also, depth of the texturing.  From the ground, orange cirrus … [Read more...]

Ghostly Sparks

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A combination of falling rain in the core and flying dust in front rendered a ghostly effect to this sparkling scene between Tucson and Phoenix.  The outflow-belching, dust-kicking multicellular thunderstorm cluster trained along its long axis, presenting me with the opportunity to photograph dozens of cloud-to-ground strikes from one spot.  As for the red stripe, that was a taillight on a vehicle … [Read more...]

Towering Sunset Sky

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Frigid in cold outflow, at over 6,000 feet in elevation, one may be excused for distraction from surroundings.  In this moment, I hardly noticed the wind and cold.  A supercell had formed along the trailing, southwest end of a thunderstorm complex, thrusting its deepest and most purely vertical towers toward the tropopause right at sunset, with a bonus wall cloud beneath the main updraft base.  … [Read more...]

Moist Twilight in the Grand Canyon

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After one round of late-afternoon/sunset storms passed, and shortly before another that always will warm my memories, so will this comfortingly unusual sky.   Both altostratus above, and foggy stratus and scud from my level on down, very briefly caught filtered sunset light, sandwiching the shadowed backdrop of the early "blue hour".  Cool and damp, wondrously freshened by the scent of moist … [Read more...]

K-H Waves with Fall Colors

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Regularly spaced, angular mounds, created by Kelvin-Helmholtz wave action, rippled atop a stratus deck that accompanied an approaching cold front.  The frontal stratus deck soon would come into view from higher ground as a sharply defined, beautifully angular arcus cloud, albeit without the K-H formations atop.  To make the change in scenery, I just had to trade campus fall-foliage foreground for … [Read more...]