SkyPix

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

Textured Lakeside Sunrise

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What a deliciously complex sunrise this was.  Clouds of every form and level, superimposed and juxtaposed, low, middle and high, reflected and refracted across the palette of hues.  That light, in turn, rippled in fluid flickers off short-period waves of the lake, blown by a weakening outflow breeze.  Mammatus and residual virga lingered from a formerly strong cluster of thunderstorms that had … [Read more...]

Welcome to Montana

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Standing just a brief sprint inside Montana from the Wyoming line, I found a fitting foreground for a wet classic supercell astride the two states' border.  The storm raced east-southeastward at over 50 mph from its early stages over extreme southern Montana, across the northeastern corner of Wyoming and into western South Dakota, ensuring my stay at this landmark (and any given stop along the … [Read more...]

Cottonwood Shelf: North View

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[Part 3 of 3]  This had all the signs of a spectacular but dangerous storm complex, with deeply embedded and large mesocyclone, flash flooding, severe wind, and hail, of the sort much better appreciated from the outside than within.  This multiply tiered arcus, front-lit by indirect and warming sunlight tones from the east, posed nicely for the camera before roaring off to the east (right) and … [Read more...]

Cottonwood Shelf: Middle View

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[Part 2 of 3]  Seen head-on, the Cottonwood, SD shelf cloud looked like a strange sandwich of light, dark, and shades of beige and slate, with a hint of turquoise in the core dappled in for good measure.  I've witnessed this lighting before, but seldom so vivid.  As often is the case with late-afternoon, front-lit outflow features, I was wishing I had more time to stay there and appreciate the … [Read more...]

Cottonwood Shelf: South View

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[Part 1 of 3]  The merger of an outflow-dominant, large supercell with another, much younger, also large supercell resulted in a fiercely severe, rotating complex of thunderstorms.  That cluster briefly offered a wild outflow shelf scene in the golden hour before sunset, before I bailed south to shoot twilight lightning on its backside.  This sharp arcus denoted the southern rim of the outflow … [Read more...]

Upward Vertical Motion, Two Ways

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One may be forgiven for mistaking the lower cloud base for that of a thunderstorm, if not for the detachment of the feature from the second deck above, which really was a storm base (with unseen deep towers aloft).  This bizarre and transient formation developed beneath a swath of rapidly growing elevated convection that soon would become surface-based , as its updrafts accessed a diurnally heated … [Read more...]