I almost chased this day, but again wisely stayed home. A strong cap held and nothing developed other than some crappers early in central IA. At least not so photogenic storms fired there. Seems like you get 700mb temps of 14-15c this far east in elevation you are going to have a tough time getting surface based storms. Those temps had quickly built into western IA, shutting down the outflow boundary from a complex moving into IA. Instead I monitored the thing the whole day, making sure it wasn't going to fire. Better done at home spending no money on gas when one can! Night comes and storms in central IA continue. I had some small hope that boundary in western IA would fire later, but not much. 1 a.m. comes and some small storms were trying to pop on it now. So out the door I went, heading east on 30 towards Missouri Valley(a 8 mile drive to where I shoot around here...at least where I have lately). There were two towers really popping away with lightning just north of here. I feared they'd vanish soon as I get there. Lately it seems the second I put bug spray on, storms take a big crap. These would be no exception. Just as I started to shoot them they started to die! Arrrghh. The above image is from that first trip out. Canon 50mm F1.8 is on. I thought star trails would be cool with that. They'd have been cooler with a better storm! Lightning bugs can be seen. Apparently resolution is doing that jagged thing to the star trails when I size them down to this size. At full size the streaks are fine. I should play around with that and see how much bigger I'd have to make this to not have that. I wait around for a bit, hoping another tower would go up, but nothing. So I drove back home and began to go to bed. It's 3:30, eyes just about finished. I'm flipping channels pointlessly, as I'm just about to hit the power button. I come across The Weather Channel, and local on the 8s is going. The radar portion happens to be up. Sure as hell, the damn boundary finally began to blow up where those other storms just died. I was about to sleep the first time went over there. I was really ready to sleep now. I sighed, got up, and looked out the window. Looked like a strobe light over there, now with the moon in the scene too. So, 3:30 and I pack things up again and go.

As I first set up I could see the one tower rocketing up, with a big fat overshooting top/dome. The dome was huge and rather permanent. Turns out the thing became supercellular with a nice ol hook on radar near Denison. Three storms would do this in the same general area. One of them had a report of softball sized hail......at 5:11 a.m.! That first one, the one above, got a tornado warning with its big hook. Those 14-15c 700mb temps had now cooled to 10-11c in this area. Hell the Sig Tornado index on the spc mesoanalysis page was 9-10 in this area still at midnight. That is very very high.

I did another still images time lapse of this storm. Maybe if I ever stop getting things to add, I'll work on that and post it too.

For being so damn humid the sky above was very clear. I could even see the Milky Way from here, which is close to bad light pollution from Cargill in Blair. I also saw an exploding shooting star to the left of this shot. I've seen a lot of meteors, but never one that streaked and ended in a big blue explosion. Usually they'll just break up and continue streaking. This thing just blew up and that was that. I kept shooting this wide angle scene, trying to get some of the cool cirrus streamers overhead.

Getting closer and closer to sunrise now, so the twilight is kicking in. That is cirrus doing that by the moon. I never noticed they'd moved over there when doing this shot. Makes the moon look like a huge dual comet or something. Or something. The first supercell is in the middle, another one has blown up to its north on the left. They'd blow up, then turn to the right while getting a hook on radar. The photo is probably a 2 minute exposure. I stood there for it and thought, maybe if I took my cell phone out, it would add something. Not sure what it adds, other than light! Like there's many people to talk to at almost 5 a.m. I know, I was talking to mother nature, asking where my tornadoes were. She hung up...hmmm. Maybe she thought I should be happy.

Car and either an out of focus lens or a moving one. Had I had any brain I'd have done something with that sign and the storm. Stop convecting? Or stop, there's a storm there? Or maybe a general appeal for everyone else....stop and look up?

I certainly need a new spot, one further from the busy highway 30. The car light trails don't add anything...just clutter in this case.