Lighting Up At Night

Not particularly menacing 18 minutes after sunset, an isolated storm cell is shown in the northwest sky (top image) at 9:01 PM, Tuesday, July 9, 2013 as seen from Edgewood Road NW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa just south of Ellis Road. In the foreground is the Cedar Rapids Community School District "bus barn." The middle image shows a decidedly different appearance after dark. Lightning illuminates the upper part of the cloud while a vigorous updraft creates a spiral formation below. This image looks west from Bowman Woods Park at 10:28 PM and is a 8-second exposure at f/6.3, 200 ISO and 24mm focal length. Cloud-to-cloud lightning was frequent as the cell moved in a southeasterly direction (see radar screen capture in the bottom image).