April 9 Volatile Day

Conditions in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa metropolitan area at noon on Thursday, April 9, 2015 were of an eerie sun/light fog mix. Temperature and dew point were both at 55 degrees and humidity was 100%. The photo above, captured at Progress Drive at Martha's Way in Hiawatha, Iowa attests to this. Google Nexus 4 camera.

Further south and three and a half hours later, things were really ramping up. The image above looks west from the SE flank of an approaching tornado-warned cell as seen from Yucca Avenue at Highway 92, about two miles east of Ainsworth, Iowa in Washington County.

This image is a video frame capture and looks southeast from 175th Street, .1-mile east of US Highway 218 in Washington County. Heavy rain and penny size hail with wind from the arrived tornado-warned cell is shown at 4:14 PM CDT.

Looking northeast at the retreating severe weather, this image was captured on 150th Street at Underwood Avenue, .25-mile east of US Highway 218 at 4:40 PM. An especially intense part of the system can be seen at far left. Nikon D5000 DSLR.

This map portion of Washington County plots my spotting positions in the second, third and fourth images above, corresponding to location numbers 1, 2 and 3.