SkyPix

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

Windshield Hail Crater

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Drive into a supercell core hurling 3–4-inch hail, and you soon shall understand misery and destruction.  Fortunately this wasn't mine, though I have experienced this very sort of crushing defeat on a couple occasions (16 May 1991 and 28 March 2007)—both at the hands of classic supercells that also produced at least 5 tornadoes each.  Instead, this was in the parking lot of a La Junta motel where … [Read more...]

Deep Sundown, Nebraska Panhandle

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Great Plains sunsets rightly have a reputation for brilliance and splendor, but this one was royalty among the high echelon.  First, it unexpectedly painted the western sky in a spectacular light (with pillar!).  Then, even as the overhead colors started to fade, the intricately textured clouds in the farthest part of the western sky seemed to ignite with stunning depth of both color and pattern, … [Read more...]

Interstate Startle

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An electrified twilight sky, thanks to the back side of a supercell-containing storm complex, kept spitting sparks as ambient light faded.  The two cloud-to-ground discharges happened within just a few seconds, but were separated by many miles between the main core region (distant left) and the translucent, trailing anvil area of light precipitation (right).  The latter lit up the lives of … [Read more...]

Early Supercell Growing Mustache

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My late friend and scientific colleague Al Moller said, "Beware storms with mustaches!", a storm-spotter caution referring to the early stages of wall-cloud development.  This young supercell, with midlevel rotation gradually developing downward, was in the process of growing one from the detached, fractocumulus scud chunk rising atop rain-cooled forward-flank air.   The core at right, and lift … [Read more...]

Snowdrift Topography

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The Christmas Eve blizzard of 2009 left behind many fascinating drift effects not often witnessed in these parts, including highly variable drifting, flimsy ripples on high, exposed surfaces of underlying ice, and sastrugi.  Here, thin and flat-topped layers developed, the edges of the ledges resembling contours on a topographic map, rendered to an oblique perspective that imparts a … [Read more...]

Tunnel Vision: Deep Convection

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Lessening light and spreading, thick anvil from a severe storm complex to our southwest created a light sandwich on the northern and eastern horizon.  That was interesting to see from the vehicle as we headed east for dinner and lodging.  What changed things from interesting to special was when a band of cumulus clouds grew around the anvil's edges, in what was left of a daytime … [Read more...]