Tornado Tease

A line of precipitation that at first seemed benign moved in a northerly direction in Eastern Iowa on the evening of Tuesday, March 23, 2021. To my surprise, my weather radio sounded at 7:15 pm. A radar indicated tornado warning had been issued for extreme southeast Iowa (left panel above). A half-hour later another tornado warning was issued for Washington County, just south of Iowa City and Johnson County (right panel). These warned areas were occurring along the leading edge of this system. Both warnings were cancelled in short order. White arrows show storm motion, red polygons the warned areas, and the black target icon my location.

In response to this situation, I positioned myself on our back deck in case new warnings might pop up closer to home. None did. A serpentine-like line of rain undulated north bringing our area some heavy rain and elevated wind. The image above looks south at the approaching line of rain. iPhone 11 camera.

Radarscope image roughly corresponding to the time of the photograph above it. Note the red colored line of heavy rain, and the blue target icon indicating my location.