Cellular Coverage

The race to get ahead of this severe-warned storm cell, rumbling eastward toward Washington County, Iowa on the evening of Saturday, June 20, 2015, was won when my daughter and I arrived at our spotting location objective, having left earlier from Cedar Rapids. The image above looks west from US Highway 218, just north of the Washington, Iowa exit (66) at 5:24 pm CDT. The core of the storm cell was still some 70 miles distant at this moment, the outer edge of the anvil, about 35 miles.

This image, captured one minute later, looks north from the U-shaped US Highway 218/Highway 92 interchange at Ainsworth, Iowa. A segment of the storm system--which extended south from Marion County to north in Benton County--is seen here. In the foreground is the Ainsworth Four Corners Truck Stop and Highway 92.

By 5:34 pm the edge of the southern storm cell was creeping into view looking southwest along Yucca Avenue, about .25-mile south of Highway 92 and just a little over a mile east of the 218/92 interchange. That cell would produce tornadic spinups near the Mount Pleasant, Iowa area less than two hours later. Nikon D5000 DSLR camera.

Above is a radar screen capture for 5:30 pm. Our position at this moment is marked by a white star.