First Significant Eastern Iowa Severe Weather Event Of 2015

Tornado Watch 39 was issued for Eastern Iowa by the SPC just after noon on Thursday, April 9, 2015. Storms near Lamoni, Iowa began to fire up after 1:00 PM CDT and it became obvious if I was to intercept a large cell forming on a ENE track in southern Iowa I would have to leave work early. I left work at 2:15 PM, gathered my gear and headed south from Cedar Rapids on I-380/US Highway 218. I had just about ten minutes to spare as I passed south of the approaching storm in Washington County. The top image above shows my first spotting position, looking west on Yucca Avenue at Highway 92, about one mile east of US Highway 218 and about two miles east of the town of Ainsworth. Tornado sirens were sounding as I captured the photo (3:47 PM). Each photo is accompanied by a corresponding radar screen capture showing the storm's movement and my spotting position (white dot).

The top photo above was captured at 4:05 PM. It looks west at the approaching storm cell from 175th Street, about .2-mile east of US Highway 218 in eastern Washington County. The area was at this time tornado-warned, with a hail core located about 5 miles to the northwest (right in the photo). I rode out the fringe of this hail core and endured only penny size hail (some reports from nearby Washington, Iowa experienced half-dollar size).

The structure in the top image above has the appearance of a wall cloud, and indeed the radar image would seem to confirm that. The photo was captured at 4:28 PM, and looks east from the same location as the middle group of images. Nikon D5000 DSLR.