More Than Just A January Thaw

In the top image, cloud-to-cloud lightning stabs from behind trees on Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 3:48 AM, Tuesday, January 29, 2013. The lightning was part of a thin line of thunderstorms that moved through the area Tuesday morning amid very unwinter-like conditions. The image, a 27-second exposure shot at f/13, 200 ISO and 18mm focal length, looks east. In the bottom image at left is a radar image of the same time period from the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities. A second line of storms, seen at lower left, arrived in the Cedar Rapids area just before 7:00 AM. At right in the bottom image, my Vantage Vue console tells the tale of the unseasonably warm weather conditions shown at 6:48 AM on Tuesday. The high of 58 degrees F broke the previous record high temperature of 53 degrees set in 1919. Several tornadoes from this system formed in the Ozarks and southern states on Tuesday evening. Inevitably, since it is January, a winter storm warning was issued just 12 hours after the thunderstorms blew through Cedar Rapids. 7 inches of snow fell overnight and into the day at this location on Wednesday.

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Fading Light On Radio Road

These two images show post-sunset photographs on Saturday, January 26, 2013 looking west along Radio Road east of Highway 13 near Marion, Iowa. The top image was shot around 5:33 PM and was located about 2.7 miles east of Highway 13. The bottom image shows a farmstead and three AM 600 WMT radio transmitter towers (right) shot at 5:42 PM and located about .6 farther west from the top. Sunset on this day was 5:14 PM. The encroaching cloudy sky preceded a system of freezing rain the following day.

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Moon Wink

The full moon barely had a chance to show its face as it emerged from an opaque layer of clouds around 5:40 PM, Saturday, January 26, 2013. As it continued to rise it was quickly covered over by clouds seen at top. The clouds were part of an approaching weather system that promised snow and freezing rain for the area. The misty look along the ground in the background was caused by a passing vehicle along the gravel covered Radio Road, shown here about 2.2 miles east of Highway 13 near Marion, Iowa. Air temperature was 27 degrees F, with winds out of the SE at 10 mph. This image is a 1/6-second exposure at f/4.5, 1600 ISO and 100mm focal length.

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Cozy Pair On A Not-So-Cozy Night

The First United Methodist Church at the corner of 8th Avenue and 12th Street in Marion, Iowa provided the foreground setting as the -2.58 magnitude planet Jupiter and a waxing half moon shone over it after 5:30 PM CST on Monday, January 21, 2013. The celestial bodies were in close conjunction, less than a degree apart. This image looks ESE from 8th Avenue. Weather conditions at the time were not kind to me at all with a -15 F wind chill factor to contend with. The top image is a 1/3-second exposure at f/4, 800 ISO and 24mm focal length, the bottom is a 1/13-second exposure at f/13, 800 ISO and 18mm focal length. The next conjunction of Jupiter and the moon will not occur until 2026.

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Faux Funnel

What looked like a wedge tornado on the northwest horizon just after 8:00 AM on Sunday, January 13, 2013, was actually a steam plume emanating from the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo, Iowa. This image was captured from Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, about 8 miles SE of the plume. The steam was interacting with the 14 degrees F air, creating this menacing look.

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Wintry Christmas Morning Scene

Merry Christmas!

The bleak glow of sunrise is shown beyond a frozen pond on a rural residence on Water Street, about .4-mile northwest of Shueyville, Iowa around 8:10 AM, Tuesday, December 25, 2012. The ground is covered white due to a significant snowstorm the previous Thursday.

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End Of Winter Storm Days

Maybe not as far off as the Mayan "end of days" prediction, but the forecast for a foot or more of snow for Cedar Rapids, Iowa did not materialize following a large winter storm that passed through the area on Thursday, December 20, 2012. Although more than a foot of the white stuff fell in Central Iowa, only about seven inches came down in the scene from the top image here, along Brentwood Drive NE, just about .1-mile south of Boyson Road. The image, shot around 5:55 PM CDT, looks south as clouds overhead begin to break up. Temperature was 25 degrees F, from a daytime high of 31 degrees, and winds were gusting from 20-30 mph. The storm's snow, ice and wind did sag branches and power lines, cutting power in some places. The bottom image shows a corresponding Quad Cities NWS radar capture from that moment, with the bulk of the storm already in Illinois. The top image is a 1.4-second exposure at f/3.5, 400 ISO and 18mm focal length.

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