At a Safe Distance from Parkersburg Supercell

I was returning home with friends from a fishing trip in northeast Minnesota on Tuesday, May 25, 2008, when our group began hearing reports that something bad had happened in Parkersburg, Iowa. And indeed it had. Around 5:00 that evening a churning EF5 tornado wrought destruction upon the town, killing six people. This was the view we saw of the trailing edge of the still very powerful looking storm system about an hour and a half after the Parkersburg event. This view looks southeast along US Highway 18, between Liberty and Montgomery streets in Floyd, Iowa.

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Sunbeam Explosion

As the sun began to set after a very volatile weather day in Cedar Rapids on Friday, June 18, 2010--a day that saw two separate storm systems blow through the city, tremendous amounts of rain fall with numerous destructive lightning strikes--this beautiful scene over Bowman Woods Elementary School in Bowman Woods Park at 8:30 PM promised better times ahead.

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