White Christmas Assured

A snow storm that occurred over the night of Saturday, December 21-Sunday, December 22, 2013, dumped four-plus inches of snow on this location at Boyson Park in Marion, Iowa, near its border with Cedar Rapids. The images show the sky beginning to clear as the snow fall petered out. The top image shows a footbridge over Dry Run Creek around 9:18 AM CST on December 22. The bottom image shows a nearby trail a little over ten minutes later. Air temperature was 23 degrees F.

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Shining Through Altocumulus

The eastern sky was crowded with altocumulus clouds (a precursor to the arrival of freezing rain in less than 24 hours here) on Wednesday evening, December 18, 2013, but it wasn't enough to cover the brightest objects in the sky. The moon, just past full, kept its disk shape amid the drifting clouds, while the -2.66 magnitude planet Jupiter--about 5 degrees from the moon--blinked in and out of the openings. These images were captured from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The top image was shot around 8:44 PM CST with a 1.3-second exposure at f/11, 2000 ISO and 38mm focal length. The bottom image was shot three minutes later with a 1.2-second exposure at f/11, 2000 ISO and 86mm focal length.

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Winter Skies Are Showing

Subtle altocumulus dominated skies were seen over the front roof of our house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa 20 minutes after sunset on Monday, December 2, 2013. This image looks west around 4:55 PM CST. The temperature was around 38 degrees F.

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