Atomic Bomb or Iowa Storm?
April 10th SE corner of Iowa. These photos got posted sort of out of order and I was also using two cameras. This shot is near the end of the series. What you're looking at is a giant cumulus tower (cloud) that is rising very fast from below other layers of humid air in the atmosphere. Those layers are invisible but get compressed by the rising air and cause a disk of a new condensed cloud or "cap" above the storm tower. The tower blasts through and continues up destroying the cap. Below in the comments is one of the early shots when the caps were first appearing. There was a whole chain of these storms developing and a several of these caps or Pileus clouds were along the storm tops.
We were set to head out on the chase way earlier in the day, and probably would have wound up in central Wisconsin. The computer was having problems in Chris' truck and he replaced the power supply, that worked in the house, but it didn't work once the computer was back in the truck. He replaced the power inverter and still no luck (and blew the new power supply). We had to switch to a laptop and next thing you know, were weren't headed out until 5pm. Wisconsin wound up being a bust for the chasers that made it. We lucked out and caught these great formations in the very SE corner of Iowa and then we headed home. I was home by 3am. Nothing against Wisconsin, but I'd rather not be that far from home. Oh yeah, we hit a deer and smashed the front of the truck just a few miles from home.
Atomic Bomb or Iowa Storm?
April 10th SE corner of Iowa. These photos got posted sort of out of order and I was also using two cameras. This shot is near the end of the series. What you're looking at is a giant cumulus tower (cloud) that is rising very fast from below other layers of humid air in the atmosphere. Those layers are invisible but get compressed by the rising air and cause a disk of a new condensed cloud or "cap" above the storm tower. The tower blasts through and continues up destroying the cap. Below in the comments is one of the early shots when the caps were first appearing. There was a whole chain of these storms developing and a several of these caps or Pileus clouds were along the storm tops.
We were set to head out on the chase way earlier in the day, and probably would have wound up in central Wisconsin. The computer was having problems in Chris' truck and he replaced the power supply, that worked in the house, but it didn't work once the computer was back in the truck. He replaced the power inverter and still no luck (and blew the new power supply). We had to switch to a laptop and next thing you know, were weren't headed out until 5pm. Wisconsin wound up being a bust for the chasers that made it. We lucked out and caught these great formations in the very SE corner of Iowa and then we headed home. I was home by 3am. Nothing against Wisconsin, but I'd rather not be that far from home. Oh yeah, we hit a deer and smashed the front of the truck just a few miles from home.