Wintry February Sky In Iowa

I had originally set up shop at this location--looking the other direction of these two images-- to attempt to capture a full moon rising over farm land. When the time came it was obvious that encroaching clouds nullified that possibility. However, the beauty of a winter evening sky over the Iowa countryside was too tempting to pass up. The top and bottom images, taken at 6:09 and 6:10 PM on Monday, February 25, 2013, look west down White Road, whose T-intersection with North Marion Road (10th Street) is just behind the camera. This location is about 2.5 miles SE of Alburnett, Iowa and about 3 miles north of Marion. The western sky shows some faint streaks of color through wintry overcast following sunset. Temperature was 35 degrees F with wind at 8 mph out of the ENE. The cloud buildup would culminate in a prolonged five inch snowfall over the next two days.

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2013 Linn County Severe Weather Spotter Training

The National Weather Service in the Quad Cities (DVN) again conducted severe weather spotter training for Linn County in Iowa in 2013. This year the annual event was held on Saturday, February 23 from 1:00-3:00 PM at St. Mark's Life Center in Marion. The service was free of charge and open to the public. In the top image, Warning Coordination Meteorologist Donna Dubberke (left) begins the session with an overview description of the afternoon's topics. The bottom group of images shows photos that I have taken and supplied to DVN displayed on the big screen during the training session, including a lightning image incorporated into their storm spotter training logo!

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Halo Warnings Of Bad Weather

Almost acting as a celestial warning to a coming snowstorm, the moon sported a halo on Wednesday evening, February 20, 2013. Less than 24 hours later heavy snow was moving into the area. The top image shows the moon halo behind a utility pole located at the T-intersection of Jordans Grove Road and Radio Road, about 2.5 miles east of Highway 13, NE of Marion, Iowa at 8:36 PM. This is a 7 second exposure at f/4.5, 400 ISO and 18mm focal length. The bottom image, shot as a 6 second exposure 13 minutes later, shows the halo above a water tower located on Tower Terrace Road just east of 35th Street in Marion. Both images look south and show the -2.36 magnitude planet Jupiter at right. Air temperature was 20 degrees F. Haloes, caused by refracted light passing through ice crystals in cirriform clouds that lie between the observer and the light source, often precede rain or snow by 24 to 48 hours. (From the evening of Thursday, February 21 to midday on Friday, February 22, about 5 inches of snow was deposited in our area)

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Mercury Moments

The planet Mercury, usually an elusive target for observers because of close proximity to the sun in our skies, was in its prime as seen in these images from Friday, February 15, 2013 (top) and Saturday, February 16, 2013 (bottom). The top image shows Mercury at 6:18 PM CST, as seen from near the Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa. The image looks west toward Cedar Rapids. In this image, air temperature was 23 degrees F, shown at -0.56 magnitude and was 9 degrees above the horizon. In the bottom image Mercury is shown above tree branches as seen from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids at 6:30 PM. The planet, shining at -0.44 magnitude, is 7 degrees above the horizon. Air temperature at this time was 21 degrees. This evening found Mercury at its greatest elongation from the sun (18 degrees).

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Sliver In The Sun Glow

A waxing crescent moon hangs high
over the western horizon as seen from
the grounds at Echo Hill Presbyterian 
Church near Marion, Iowa on Tuesday,
February 12, 2013. Time was 5:56 PM,
20 minutes after sunset.

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Gander Landing

I was pressed for time and was trying to photograph the planet Mercury, still hidden in the Sun's glare at this moment. While waiting for the planet to materialize, a flock of Canada Geese suddenly flew left-to-right along the horizon, then wheeled toward me, then to the left, flying through my camera's field of view. The flock would eventually land in the background at center. This image was captured from the parking lot at Echo Hill Presbyterian Church near Marion, Iowa around 5:43 PM, Tuesday, February 12, 2013. I had to depart a little over ten minutes later, and never saw Mercury from this position. The flight of geese, however, made up for the disappointment!

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Tornado Panorama

The top group of images shows the setup for the day, with the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) outlook for 3:00 PM CDT on April, 9, 2011 (left) and satellite images of the supercell development in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa later that afternoon. The bottom image is panoramic shot created by stitching together three separate photos and shows an EF3 tornado (left center) as it was approaching the Western Iowa town of Mapleton. Note the inflow tail cloud at right feeding into the storm. Time and date were 7:21 PM, Saturday, April 9, 2011. This image looks north and the twister was about 7 miles distant. We were parked alongside Sumac Avenue, about .25-mile north of County Highway E34 and about .75-mile west of State Highway 141. In minutes we proceeded north for about 2.5 miles for another look from along the roadside. The tornado roared through Mapleton, damaging about 60% of the town. The two left images used to create this image were shot with a focal length of 18mm, the right image at 24mm focal length. This tornado was the second of eight confirmed touchdowns in Western Iowa on this night.

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Low Plume

A steam plume from the Duane Arnold Energy Center (right center) is flattened horizontally by west winds of 3 mph at 5:48 PM on Saturday, February 2, 2013. Air temperature was 3 degrees F. This view looks northwest from the parking lot at Noelridge Christian Church. The D.A.E.C. is about 7.7 miles distant.

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