Photogenic In Appearance But Weak In Output

A severe thunderstorm watch was posted in Eastern Iowa counties at 1:00 PM on Monday, May 12, 2014 as a line of storms moved to the northeast from south-central Iowa. By 3:50 PM the line of storms had this appearance (top image) as seen from White Road, .3-mile west of North Marion Road, and about 4 miles north of Marion, Iowa. The scud lowering at far left had a pseudo-wall cloud look. A play of a short video clip of this structure confirmed that no rotation took place. Despite the fact that the middle image looks very swirly, no rotation took place there either. One thing I did have to look out for was lightning--some of the shots I captured during this spotting event took place inside the car! The bottom image is a radar screen capture taking place at the same moment as the top image. An arrow points to the approaching cell from my position.