Another Expedited Intercept

At 4:35 pm CDT on Sunday, June 9, 2019 I was working on my computer, oblivious to the possibility of any kind of severe weather. The 8:40 am Storm Prediction Center (SPC) convective outlook maps for June 9 showed only the smallest probability for thunderstorms in my location (see target icons above). So when my wife approached me with the news she had heard from the radio at 4:34 pm: "There's a tornado warning," I was utterly confused. I thought she had meant for Texas or Oklahoma, and why would she be telling me that? Suddenly my home weather radio blared an alert, followed quickly by my cell phone notification. This setup was similar to the May 29 event, when there was very little time to prepare.

A line of storms had started forming around 3:00 pm in northeast Iowa, east of Decorah, and began moving southeastward with a track that would bring the southern segment just northeast of Cedar Rapids. The radar image above corresponds to the time of the tornado warning alert. The area of greatest intensity is circled, with arrows showing the storm's movement.

With the storm less than 20 miles away there was only time to pack my bare essential equipment for an intercept: my Nikon and GoPro cameras, and hand held weather and transceiver radios. The Radarscope frame capture above shows my mobile position to the tornado-warned storm at 4:54 pm.

The image above looks northeast at 5:00 pm while northbound on Highway 13 just south of County Home Road (E34). Billowing in the background is a cumulonimbus cloud spiking above 40,000 feet. The most intense part of the storm was located about 14 miles distant, about five miles northwest of Anamosa.

5:01 pm and eastbound on County Home Road (E34), just east of Highway 13 and northeast of Marion, Iowa. Zoomed-in shot of the anvil-topped cumulonimbus.

5:02 pm. Wide angle shot of the northeast sky while continuing east on County Home Road, about 3 miles west of Whittier, Iowa.

5:07 pm. Eastbound on County Home about 2 miles west of Viola, Iowa. A high precipitation core of the storm is seen at left.

5:08 pm. Now about one mile west of Viola. Heavy rain shafts are seen at right. The storm is moving from left-to-right in the image. Camera looks to the northwest.

5:09 pm. Eastbound on County Home Road at the western edge of Viola. A medium rotating wall cloud is seen above the background utility poles, with a possible forming funnel (lighter area) at center.

5:10 pm. At the intersection of County Home Road (E34) and Stone City Road in Viola. Rotating wall cloud can be seen low in the east, just above the tree line at right.

Radar frame capture for 5:15 pm as I was proceeding toward Anamosa on County Home Road. An arrow points toward the most intense part of this storm from my current mobile location (target icon). An EF0 tornado was occurring in this general area at this time.

5:16 pm. Eastbound on County Home Road (E34), about 1.5 miles southwest of Anamosa, Iowa, and .25-mile west of 223rd Avenue. The high precipitation area of the tornado-warned cell is just behind the tree line at left.

Base reflectivity (left) and velocity images corresponding to the time of the photograph above them. My location is shown with the white target icon. Arrows indicate the storm's track.

5:20 pm. At my stationary spotting position on 223rd Avenue in the Turkey Hollow II housing development, about 1.5 miles southwest of Anamosa. This image looks east. The storm sports a high precipitation core at left, a slowly rotating wall cloud at center and is moving away at around 35 mph toward the background at right.

5:27 pm. Panorama looking southeast from 223rd Avenue. Note the large precipitation area at left.

5:30 pm. Storm with a very impressive precipitation core.

5:32 pm. Looking southeast from 223rd Avenue at the departing storm. My eyes were probably deceiving me when I thought I saw faint debris rising from just above the tree line at left background and moving to the right; but it also could have been dirt kicked up by a truck driving through a construction area which was located in that direction. I could not report what I might have been imagining. (What was not imagination was the fact that three EF0 tornado touchdowns were confirmed on this day: 3:53 pm northeast of Winthrop, 4:24 near Prairieburg and 5:14-5:17 south of Anamosa.) With the passage of the storm from this position, it was soon time for me to "weigh anchor" and head for home.

5:47 pm. This image looks back east at the departing storm cell during a brief stop on a connecting intersection along US Highway 151 near Springville, Iowa. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.