An Iowa stormy landscape as a shelf cloud pushes east along farmland near Adair, IA
On May 23rd, I began the day in North Platte, NE after spending the night at a Best Western following the previous day's storm chase. I woke up fairly early on this day and began to head back home to Illinois on I-80. Along my route back home I came across some on-going convection that actually was photogenic during the late morning into the early afternoon in western Iowa. These storms were non-severe, but I was quite pleased with the stormy skies I was able to photograph. This area ahead of these thunderstorms featured only 1,000J/kg of CAPE, 0-6km shear at 25kts, and dew points near 63°F. The severe parameters were less than ideal to say the least in this area on this day. Nevertheless, I was able to grab a few good shots of this convection along I-80 near Adair, IA as it pushed east. I've added a few photos I shot on the drive back to Illinois below:
An Iowa farmer tills his field as the storm approaches...
Strong outflow winds at this point as the whale's mouth moves overhead!
A beautiful landscape with the stormy backdrop!
The shelf cloud moving closer...
I would have liked to have had enough time to get much closer to the barn (right) for an obvious photo-op...
"Storm in the heartland"
"Dark skies"
That wraps up this post. It was a nice surprise on my drive home back to Illinois to catch some photogenic storms along my route. I also storm chased on May 28th back home in Illinois before my two-week summer vacation began in June. I'll update with that post shortly.
