October Lightning

Cloud-to-cloud lightning forks from the underside of passing cloud cover looking northeast from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 8:47 PM, Sunday, October 23, 2011. Warm conditions (63 degrees F at this hour) helped ignite a line of thunderstorms whose SW edge is seen here about 10 miles distant, with the rest of the line stretching northeast to nearly Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The storm missed Cedar Rapids, passing east of the city as it moved in an ESE direction. Another smaller cell located southwest of Cedar Rapids also missed the area. This image was captured with a 10-second exposure at f/3.5, 800 ISO and an 18mm focal length.