Tail Of The Storm

The thin whitish line of clouds at right is known as a "tail cloud"--in this case an inflow tail cloud--feeding into the severe storm. A tail cloud is many times seen attached to a wall cloud, and indeed this image is an example of that. At left just out of the picture was a tornado on the ground in the Mapleton, Iowa area. This photo looks north along Sumac Avenue around 7:20 PM, Saturday, April 9, 2011, about seven miles from town.