Storms Fast Opening Act, Beautiful Finale

A line of storms began forming quickly just east of Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 4:00 pm CDT on Sunday, July 26, 2020, began intensifying, then moved east. The image above, looking southeast at 5:03 pm from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, shows a very strong area of that line about five minutes before it went severe warned. The area was located about 20 miles to the ESE, near the town of Mechanicsville in Cedar County.

5:04 pm. This was a multi-cellular storm, but these two cells merged (above) as it progressed.

Radarscope capture from 5:05 pm, showing the line of storms and the severe-warned polygon.

5:17 pm. Panorama of the storm after it had gone severe warned. The most intense area of the line was located about 22 miles distant, just west of the town of Stanwood in Cedar County.

5:22 pm. Interesting cloud feature resembling a horizontal funnel, looking east from my backyard. This particular storm system would move on and into far Eastern Iowa after 7:00 pm.

A new area of storms had gotten going to the south and east of Cedar Rapids around 6:00 pm, and these too intensified. With daylight fading, the sky to the east turned brilliant with reflective pinks, yellows and oranges. This image looks east from my backyard at 8:33 pm. The illuminated clouds in the background were located in Jones County, about 30 miles distant.

8:33 pm. Vertical capture.

8:34 pm. Panoramic view from backyard.

Radar capture corresponding to 8:35 pm. My location is illustrated by the target icon at left, the area of clouds exhibiting the brilliant luminosity are shown at right.

8:38 pm. Another panoramic capture. Within about ten minutes this scene faded into darkness. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.