Distant But Dangerous

Seemingly harmless hidden inside a small opening in more local cloud cover, a line of cumulus 65 miles to the west (top image) is seen from Progress Drive in Hiawatha, Iowa around 1:08 PM, Monday, June 24, 2013. Two hours later this location was under a tornado warning from the system, though the nearest confirmed sighting was about 25 miles to the southeast, near Solon. The storm also dropped tremendous amounts of rain. The bottom image is a comparable radar image capture of this moment. The arrow shows the track of the distant cumulus, at this time in Marshall County.