Field Of Dreams Sunset

The sun sets beyond left field at the Field of Dreams movie set near Dyersville, Iowa at 6:46 pm CDT, Friday, August 20, 2021. Our visitation here was eight days after the memorable first Major League baseball game ever played in the state of Iowa, and saw the Chicago White Sox defeat the New York Yankees, 9-8. Part of the stadium where the game was played can be seen in the background at left. Sections of it were being dismantled at that moment. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Benign Mammatus

Mammatus cloud formations began to move into the skies Eastern Iowa on the evening of Thursday, August 12, 2021. Many times mammatus accompany severe weather, where they extend under the base of a cumulonimbus, but in this case they did not. Mammatus clouds form as moist sinking areas, but moisture has been hard to come by for months at this location. The above pic looks northwest over Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids. at 6:00 pm CDT.

6:06 pm. Panorama looking northwest. Benign mammatus. At lower left is the partially obscured sun. The formations were gone in about a half hour. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Perseids Powerful This Year

 

The previous late night/early morning was overcast, and that day was the peak for the 2021 Perseids Meteor Shower. Not to be disappointed though, as conditions the early morning of the next day (August 14) were absolutely perfect! Clear skies, no moon, no haze, cool temperatures (56 degrees F), no wind, no insects and one of the best Perseids shows I've seen in years. Maybe not so much in bright streaks, but in numbers. You know it's going to be good when you see meteors while you're still setting up your camera. The above image looks northeast from near Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and is a composite of 17 separate meteor streaks, each capture being a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, ISO 400 and 16mm focal length. The time range from start to finish of the composite was 3:07 am --4:24 am CDT. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera, Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX II lens.

3:15 am CDT. Single image, containing the brightest captured meteor streak, and with the same camera settings as outlined above. The most active part of the event as I witnessed it seemed to be from 3-4 am, with numbers tapering off after 4:00 am.

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Derecho Deja Vu

Severe Thunderstorm Watch #419 is issued by The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) at 2:05 pm CDT.

A severe storm packing high winds presented itself in Linn County, Iowa during the late afternoon hours of Tuesday, August 10, 2021, eerily one year to the date after last year's epic derecho event. I chose a spotting location just south of the storm system about three miles north of County Home Road and about a half-mile east of Highway 13 (more specifically Pleasant Valley Road, about a tenth-mile north of Indian Bridge Road--(42° 8'19.68"N,  91°32'25.32"W). The image above, captured at 3:51 pm CDT, looks north at the storm system, whose most intense area was located about 3 miles distant.

Radarscope capture, corresponding to the image at top. Storm track was to the southeast. My spotting location is indicated by the target icon.

4:13 pm. Looking east at swirling clouds. A wayward bird can be seen at lower left.

4:17 pm. Scud clouds looking northeast.

4:17 pm. Incoming heavy rain and high winds approaching from the northwest.

4:27 pm. Looking south. Wind gusts were in the 60-70 mph range at this time--reminiscent of the derecho! Wind was blowing from lower left to upper right in the image. I did not witness significant damage going home, but noticed horseweed in the ditches leaning about 45 degrees, and some corn stalks leaning about 15 degrees. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Radarscope capture corresponding to photograph above it.

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Derecho: One Year Later

It's been a full year since the derecho of August 10, 2021 swept through Eastern Iowa, leaving unprecedented destruction, at a scale most residents had never witnessed before. These images are but a few I posted on my website shortly after the event last year, and were captured in Cedar Rapids and Marion Iowa. Unimaginable sustained straight-line winds of up to 140 mph occurred in the nearby town of Hiawatha. The derecho, rated as the most costliest US land thunderstorm ever, caused an estimated $11 billion in damage. Power was out in many rural locations for a month or more. 669,000 mature trees in Cedar Rapids were lost, about 70% of its urban canopy. Curbside cleanup of the storm in Cedar Rapids was finally completed around July 1 of this year, with four million cubic yards of tree debris being removed. The Iowa DNR estimates 4.4 million trees were lost in the state overall. Home and business roofing and siding restoration continues to this day. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Smoke from a Distant Fire

Skies during the past month or so have contained high altitude smoke particles, created from wildfires in the western parts of the US and Canada. Moon appearances, sunrises and sunsets have been enhanced by this smoke. The following images of mine are some examples of this. Above, a "Buck" full moon is shown at 10:51 pm CDT on Saturday, July 24, 2021. This image of the (98.4 %) full moon is a 1/250 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 160, 300mm focal length. The Buck Moon name is associated with Native American observations of male deer, whose antlers are in full growing phases during this month.

8:06 pm CDT, Wednesday, July 28, 2021. Sunset overlooking East Robins Road in Marion, Iowa.

8:17 pm. Similar view.

Sunset overlooking Bowman Woods Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 7:51 pm CDT, Thursday, July 29, 2021.

7:56 pm. Sunset, as seen from the sledding hill at Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids.

8:02 pm. Similar view.

8:04 pm. Similar view. Official sunset was at 8:28 pm. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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