SkyPix

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

Occlusion Attention: Part 3

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Getting ever more concerned that something tornadic was happening in the old, bent-back occlusion, I pulled out the zoom camera and started looking through its viewfinder, shooting, looking at the LCD, and looking directly with eyeballs.  All this effort and attention yielded strong suspicion, but never enough confidence and evidence to say yes, that's a tornado.  Some storms are just too chaotic … [Read more...]

Occlusion Attention: Part 2

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After this supercell's forward-flank core and rain foot shifted northward enough to see the rotating, deeply occluded wall cloud in the distance, I tried to pay very close attention to the area under it, while not losing track of the closer, main updraft base (also rotating, but very slowly at this point).  The slightly higher terrain, upon which the wind turbines sat, didn't help, nor did the … [Read more...]

Occlusion Attention: Part 1

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[Part 1 of 3] I could have titled this short series, "Lessons in Uncertainty in Storm Spotting", but that sounds too long, more like the title of a research paper or PowerPoint presentation.  On an uncommon "10% tornado enhanced risk" day for the High Plains of northeastern Colorado, many ingredients came together for a potential multiple-tornado event, including an anomalously rich fetch of … [Read more...]

Desert Dustiness

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First of four haboobs I intercepted and photographed on the 2021 desert-storm sojourn, this one was the earliest in the day and contained the least dust, but still made its grit-blowing presence known as it surged southward across the Phoenix area.   The area of outflow kicked off more outflow-producing cells between Buckeye and Gila Bend to the south, leading to a weirdly fantastic cloudscape … [Read more...]

Burlington Blasts

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The chase day was over, or so it seemed; I had finished shooting outflow clouds in twilight, and headed for dinner and a room at a familiar motel in Burlington.  The atmosphere had different plans, but at least let me eat and relax for an hour or so first.  Then some elevated thunderstorms erupted atop the outflow west of town shortly before midnight, luring me back out westward a short distance … [Read more...]

Underside Blues

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Storm-intercept days often end with a rush of outflow, from clustered storms that merged upscale from the hours-earlier convection that brought about the chase in the first place.  Such was true here.  A pool of rain-cooled air, trailing from a dying storm cluster formerly composed of supercells and multicells, created an arcus cloud that was rather fuzzy and featureless from the outside, but … [Read more...]