A mixed sky of cumulus and cirrus clouds accentuate a colorful line of Memorial Day American flags situated along Baldwin Avenue at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa around 12:35 PM, Monday, May 30, 2011. The day's weather in Central Iowa saw gusty winds with temperatures in the middle 80s. The state of Iowa was largely spared of any severe weather on this day--most of it was confined to the west in Nebraska. This view looks northeast.
This colorful cloud display belies a day that produced severe and violent weather in other parts of the Midwest on Sunday, May 22, 2011. The image seen here was captured at 8:40 PM, 13 minutes after sunset and looks southeast at Boyson Park in Marion, Iowa. A hint of lingering pink colored mammatus is shown just above the treetops at center. A very prominent display of mammatus accompanied severe weather that blew through the Cedar Rapids/Marion area over four hours earlier. This same overall storm system produced the EF5 tornado that tragically struck Joplin, Missouri around 5:45 PM.
A shelf cloud with hanging scud, part of an approaching squall line, is seen here as it was about one mile distant in the west sky. This image was taken just before 6:00 PM, Tuesday, May 24, 2011 and looks toward the neighborhood of White Ivy Place NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The passing of the front brought heavy rain, high wind and lightning in its wake.
A concentrated area of mammatus clouds appear to protrude out in a cluster in this view looking southwest from the grounds at Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This image was captured around 3:45 PM, Sunday, May 22, 2011. The parent storm, of which these mammatus formations were part of, was most intense at this moment just south of the town of Swisher, about 17 miles to the southwest. Cloud tops there reached 55,000 feet. Radar images showed a lavender color at that location suggesting a large hail core. This storm was part of a larger system that produced the EF5 tornado that ravaged Joplin, Missouri about two hours later.
The planet Saturn (yellowish bright streak toward upper right) and a clear-sky-full-of-other-stars appear as streaks in this 20-minute exposure. The image was created using five stacked four-minutes exposures, shot at f/7.1, 200 ISO and an 18mm focal length. The exposure time was from 9:48-10:08 PM, Thursday, May 26, 2011. This view looks southeast from a position just west of the grounds at Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa. The bright streak at top center was made from the -0.07 magnitude star Arcturus, in the constellation Bootes.
This storm cell was about 40 miles away from the observer just before 5:30 PM on Tuesday, May 24, 2011. I had fought rush hour traffic during a mini-chase to finally pull off Interstate 380 at the Toddville, Iowa exit just north of Cedar Rapids to get the opportunity to shoot this photo. The image looks northeast and was taken from Cora Mae Lane, about a 1/4-mile west of the exit and about 3/4-mile southeast of Toddville. At this hour the cell was located about 40 miles away in extreme northeast Jones County, and about 20 miles southwest of the city of Dubuque. The storm cell began to fire up in northern Jones County about 3:20 PM and went severe-warned before 5:00 PM. By 7:00 PM the cell had nearly reached the Illinois border and had diminished considerably.
This image of lumpy mammatus clouds over two other cloud types was taken from the grounds at Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 3:55 PM, Sunday, May 22, 2011 and looks northeast. The presence of mammatus clouds indicate a very moist and unstable middle or upper level in the atmosphere which overlies a drier layer below a cumulonimbus anvil. In this condition, convection is inverted as instability is forced downward out of the parent cloud, not up. Large amounts of moisture and heat bubble out from a cumulonimbus anvil over the neighboring, relatively undisturbed air. Also seen in this image is a pileus cloud capping structure seen just above the low level scud clouds in front. Pileus clouds form in strong updrafts within moist air at lower altitudes.
A shelf cloud with ragged texture approaches the Colton Circle condominiums near C Avenue and Boyson Road NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa just before 6:00 PM on Tuesday, May 24, 2011. To the eye of the novice observer, this low hanging structure might be misconstrued as a funnel cloud. In actuality, it was the leading edge of a gust front, bringing with it heavy rain, some high wind and lightning. This view looks southwest.
This image, taken just before 4:00 PM on Sunday, May 22, 2011, shows three separate cloud types: Low to the ground in the foreground is fast moving cumulus scud. Resembling the top of a water tower at center is a pileus cloud or banding structure, the result of a strong updraft acting on a moist lower level air. The cloud, probably cumulonimbus congestus, was small but growing fast vertically--its top can be seen just above the dark cloud at right. Above everything else and spread across most of the sky were mammatus clouds, indicators of a high wind shear environment. This view looks northeast from the grounds at Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of my storm spotter locations which affords a great all-around view of the sky. Cedar Rapids was lucky this time as storm cells passed north and south of the city. Over-protective warning sirens sounded at this location twice before 3:00 PM--but no real suggestion of rotation over the city was evident. Despite ripe conditions for widespread tornadic formation in Eastern Iowa, only about four locations confirmed touchdowns.
Mammatus clouds dominate the northeast sky as seen from the parking lot at Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 4:00 PM, Sunday, May 22, 2011. West-central Linn County, of which Cedar Rapids is a part of, was under a tornado warning that had expired earlier at 3:45 PM. Though no tornado sightings in Linn County were confirmed, severe weather produced a volatile sky of this nature. Mammatus extend from the base of the anvil of a cumulonimbus cloud and are produced by intense wind shear.
The setting sun shines through tree branches in Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in a cloudless sky just before 5:00 PM on Tuesday, May 17, 2011. The crystal-clear weather this evening was dominated by high pressure and low humidity. The low-angle sunlight created wonderful shadows beneath the canopy of branches and leaves in the park.
A round brick barn located just south of the Christ Community United Methodist Church grounds in Marion, Iowa is silhouetted in front of a star-spangled sky in this image taken around 9:45 PM, Monday, May 17, 2011. A nearly-full moon was beginning to rise toward the left, washing out most of the dimmer stars. This was a 40-second exposure at f/5.6, 200 ISO and a 24mm focal length.
A full moon rises in clear skies over a former farm field just south of Boyson Road and west of Alburnett Road in Marion, Iowa around 8:20 PM, Monday, May 16, 2011. The field is now the site of a future housing development, currently being graded for construction. Moonrise on this day was 7:55 PM; sunset at 8:21 PM. The combination of clear skies, no wind and an unusual jet stream flow pattern all combined for near-record low temperatures in the mid-30s the next morning.
Altocumulus undulatus clouds seem to radiate from the point where the sun would rise on the morning of Wednesday, May 11, 2011. The photo was shot at 5:15 AM and sunrise occurred at 5:50 AM. The house where the glow of lights is seen at center is located on the north side of Boyson Road in Marion, Iowa between Timber Oak Court and Alburnett Road. The prefix "alto" denotes clouds of middle-level altitude--approximately 6,500-16,500 feet. This image was captured using a 3-second exposure at f/10, an ISO of 500 and a focal length of 18mm.
A smattering of low cumulus clouds shown in this image in the foreground drift quickly past high altitude cirrus incinus (mare's tail clouds) in the background around 2:35 PM, Thursday, May 12, 2011. This view looks west from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Cirrus incinus clouds, which are composed of ice crystals and typically occur above 23,000 feet, usually presage the arrival of rain or stormy weather which did happen a day later.
This cloud-to-cloud lightning bolt was captured from a video frame still during our storm chase in western Iowa around 8:50 PM, Saturday, April 9, 2011. Our chase vehicle was northbound on US Highway 71, about 5.5 miles south of Early, Iowa. Note the blurred and bent tree silhouettes, caused by high winds. The view looks east, as seen through the right rear window. The lightning display of which this image was a part of was vivid and continuous--a testament to the storm's awesome power. About ten minutes after this moment our chase team of two vehicles viewed a wedge tornado to our north near Early--seen only during lightning flashes.
A wall cloud rotates southwest of 210th Street, a gravel road about one mile west of Ute, Iowa around 7:05 PM, Saturday, April 9, 2011. The high inflow buffeting winds made the two utility pole lines (top) whine, making us briefly wonder if it was the sound of a tornado. This location was about 8 miles southeast of Mapleton, Iowa, where our storm chase group drove to within 4.5 miles of about 20 minutes later and witnessed a tornado on the ground there. In the distant background of this image are rain shafts. This wall cloud was probably responsible for the formation of the Mapleton tornado.
City lights of Cedar Rapids, Iowa are laid out under setting stars and the moon around 9:50 PM, Saturday, May 7, 2011. The bright star streak at upper left is 0.37 magnitude Procyon, in the constellation Canis Minor (The Lesser Dog). An overexposed waxing crescent moon is at upper right and below the moon are a stars from a portion of the constellation Gemini. The foreground lights at bottom center are from the Newcastle Road neighborhood and at far right is East Robins Road. This image, a stack composite of three separate 30-second exposures, was taken from near the grounds of Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa. Each exposure of this west sky view was shot at f/10, 500 ISO and a focal length of 24mm.
The eastern sky as seen from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids around 6:15 PM, Friday, May 6, 2011, contained a combination of cloud types. At top are altocumulus and at the bottom just above the trees at left are cirrus. The clouds were moving swiftly overhead from west to east.
This meteor streak was part of the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower which peaked on the early morning of Friday, May 6, 2011. Meteors from this shower derive from debris ejected by the Comet Halley, last seen from Earth in 1986. In this image, looking southeast from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa just after 4:30 AM, the meteor streak moves left to right above the constellation Sagittarius and directly through the cloudy mass of the Milky Way. The radiant (apparent point of origin) of this meteor shower lies in the constellation Aquarius toward the left. The small fuzzy area just below and left of the right side of the meteor streak is M8, The Lagoon Nebula. If you look closely you can see an aircraft lights pattern running roughly parallel to the meteor streak toward the top. This image was created by a 30-second exposure at f/3.5, 250 ISO and 18mm focal length.
This star trail effect was achieved by pointing my camera due north and shooting nine separate five-minute exposures, then stacking them in Photoshop. I waited 10-15 seconds between each shot to give my DSLR's sensor a break. The star that appears barely to move at center is Polaris, the North Star. The shooting session took place from 9:27-10:08 PM on Tuesday, May 3, 2011. My camera aperture was f/5.3, ISO of 200 and 46mm focal length. The location was from my back deck in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, near Bowman Woods Park. This clear sky had its disadvantages though--it was a chilly 41 degrees F outside and dropping fast!
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