Under Their Watchful Eye

In the top image members of the Manchester (Iowa) Fire Department prepare to follow a scrappy lowering from under a wall cloud as seen from 255th Street in Delaware County around 5:36 PM, Wednesday, June 12, 2013. This position was about a quarter mile east of Highway 13, between the towns of Manchester and Ryan. The vehicles head off into the distance toward the east in the middle image. I watched for a few minutes longer before getting into my car and heading for home. The bottom set of circles are radar screen captures showing the captured tornadic cell (circled) and my position (blue star) in relation to it. The shaded county is Delaware County and the bottom middle image compares to the time of the two images above.