Big Storms, Big View

This was an unexpected event. Forecasts had earlier predicted severe weather for NE Iowa and into Wisconsin on the afternoon of Sunday, August 2, 2015. Instead, storms began to fire up in SW Iowa
after 4:00 pm. I had actually driven from Cedar Rapids to near Dubuque in anticipation of predicted severe weather there. As the afternoon progressed, it was obvious this was not going to happen, so I returned home. As it turned out, spectacular photo ops were waiting for me only blocks away from home! The image above is a four-photo stitch, creating a panorama of a storm system visual that was actually a conglomerate of several cells. Taken from Archer Drive and Bowhunter Drive in Marion at 8:29 pm CDT, the distance from the left edge (SE sky) to the right edge (SW sky) was about 200 miles. Closer in, occupying the left part of the cloud system was a cell about 50 miles distant in Muscatine County. The middle (south) was another cell about equal distance in Louisa County and to the right was a third cell about 45 miles away in Keokuk County. The more distant line stretched some 125 miles from SW Iowa into northern Missouri. The severe cell in southwest Iowa spawned an EF1 tornado in Adams County around 6:25 pm.

Above is an enlarged area of the panorama image, showing the left (SE) flank of the storm line, also at 8:29 pm. Although the sun had set six minutes earlier, the cloud tops--some 45,000 feet high--still reflected its light. A decided shadow line, cast from terrain, can easily be seen in the images. Nikon D5000 DSLR camera.

This radar screen capture of the moment from the National Weather Service in Des Moines, shows all the cells and their positions from my spotting location.