Almost Here And It's Time To Go

The severe storm cell was just under five minutes away when I made my final shots of it at this location on North Marion Road, just north of County Home Road, north of Marion, Iowa on Thursday, June 15, 2017. Time was 8:24 pm CDT. This image features a small cloud rotation at left, a strong downdraft at background right and a thin shelf cloud at foreground right-center.

A closer view of the top image, looking NW. The strong downdraft in the background was vigorously spreading out on the ground upon contact.

8:25 pm. Panoramic image. Small vortices, dipping and disappearing, can be seen under the rotation area at left. Also visible at left is my vehicle. Most if not all of the lightning was of the CC variety, so I was able to venture a considerable distance from the safety of my car.

8:27 pm. With the storm's arrival at any moment, I was not about to be caught in it here, and my plan was to escape south to another position closer to home and remain there until it blew over me. I hopped into my car and paused at the intersection of North Marion Road with County Home Road. Looking back through my open window, a saw one final great photo op and jumped out with my driver's side door wide open, to capture a sequence of pictures in which this panorama was made from. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.