Hint Of Evening's Severe Weather

Not a wall cloud, but resembling a miniature version of one, this churning cloud was the product of very unstable air present in western Iowa on the afternoon of Saturday, April 9, 2011. The image was captured around 3:35 PM, about one hour and 40 minutes before a real wall cloud dropped a tornado SW of Mapleton, Iowa. This view taken from a U-Stop convenience store looks east from about .20-mile south of Interstate 80 and 1.5 miles north of Minden, Iowa. The sky soon cleared at this location and the sun came out. This was a storm initiation stop for our chase team. From here, we would proceed west, north, then northeast in pursuit of a significant tornado outbreak throughout the evening.