It was a very cool storm, but probably not worth a 700 mile drive. We arrived a little late to the party, as the storm had already produced in Nebraska, and was now a rain-wrapped HP mess on the north end of a developing line. It was impressive on radar, as it appeared to have powerful, but wide rotation, and resembled a coma shaped hurricane with an eye. It was too dangerous to get into to verify, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a tornado in the core of that storm. It had very powerful inflow at all times, on both the north, south, and east side of the storm. That’s something I hadn’t really experienced before. Usually that super strong inflow is replaced by RFD at some point, but this storm had powerful winds feeding into it from every side of the storm that we were on.

Technical issues made this a challenge, as our bluetooth GPS seems to no longer like our computer. Data and roads were surprisingly good and kept us from getting munched by this storm during the extra time it took to figure out navigation, but if we used spotter network, I’m sure quite a few people would have been nervous given our positions a few times. These pictures are from our initial intercept from the top of a large hill east of Underwood, Iowa.

I photographed way more wildlife than storms this day. We didn’t have time to get out to the triple point, so we played the warm front, but I don’t think there was quite enough instability, and definitely not enough of a cap to let it build up. This was from Leola, South Dakota.

Bald Eagle Landing on Ice

Immature Bald Eagle with fish

Today was a great day on the river.  I didn’t have time to edit them yet, but here’s one.  This was the first picture out of the camera, and pretty much sums up the amazingness of today.

Bald Eagle with Fish

This is the first time in 15 or so attempts to photograph bald eagles that I’ve actually seen them feeding.  Usually they just hang out in trees and occasionally fly around.  Sadly, by the time I had all my camera settings right, it was after sunset, so here’s an eagle with a fish at ISO 2200.