I Was On My Way To A Global Warming Meeting But Got Stuck In The Snow...

...not really. But you get the idea. Unabated unseasonably cold weather gripped all of March and the first week of April in Iowa in 2018. Cedar Rapids saw 10 straight days of 40 degrees F or less up until April 9. The image above shows a snowfall event under way on Sunday afternoon, April 8, which did not end until the next day (another Cedar Rapids April 8 in 1973 comes to mind). This storm deposited just over three inches when it was all said and done. I placed my tripod in a shallow part of Dry Run Creek, which at this location is the border between Cedar Rapids and Marion, and faced south. The image is a stack combination (StarStaX2) of 14 separate exposures, all with identical settings: 8 seconds at f/22, 100 ISO and 16mm focal length using a 6-stop X2 77mm ND filter. Total elapsed time was 4:34-4:36 pm CDT. The water was not moving fast but the extended exposure allowed by the filter "calmed" the surface. On the down side, the exposure also "erased" the heavy snowflakes that were falling at the time.

Using the same settings as the top image but deciding to shoot only 8 separate exposures (4:46-4:48 pm) to stack is this image, which looks east at a footbridge a little further downstream.

A black & white version of image 2, using one of the Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro 2 options.
Tokina AT-X Pro DX 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Radar screen capture of the winter storm system taking place at the time of photography, with the target showing my position.