My first rotating wall cloud

I intended to write about my weekend at the Hawkeye KC trials but Mother Nature had other ideas this evening.

The Storm Prediction Center had our section of the state under a slight risk for severe weather throughout the late afternoon and evening. I got home from the trial late (6 p.m.! We didn't get in the ring until 5:10 p.m. More on that in another post, I promise!) and lines of storms were beginning to fire to the west. A tornado had touched down several counties to the north and the TV stations all launched into severe weather coverage mode.

There's been a drought (no pun intended) of severe weather this spring, so now, on the first day of summer, I was ready to score some serious radar watching. Seriously, this is probably a form of mental illness. Or I just like to look at the bright colors. Whatever. It's usually more entertaining than regular programming anyway.

Wasn't long before a thunderstorm cell forming in Iowa County was getting serious attention. About the time I decided to go out and have a look-see (that's very technical storm spotter jargon for going out behind the machine shed and looking west), my weather radio blasted off on the kitchen counter and reported Iowa County was now tornado warned as a wall cloud had been reported near Conroy. Conroy is 5 miles directly west of our house.

And here it is.

I stood there and watched that cloud until I started feeling a little bit uneasy. I didn't call it in to the National Weather Service because someone else had obviously beaten me to it and I figured they were probably going a little crazy with multiple severe cells popping up all over and didn't need duplicate reports.

I went back in the house just in time to hear my weather radio blaring out another warning. Trained weather spotters had reported a wall cloud with rotation, moving east out of Conroy at 20 miles an hour. It would arrive near Homestead at 8:40 p.m.

D*mn sneaky thing. There wasn't any rotation a couple of seconds ago. Someone was trying to steal my thunder (sorry, pun intended; I couldn't help it). Out I went again for another look-see.

A section of the cloud had lowered. It's really hard to show rotation in a still photo and I'm still such a beginner at this storm spotting stuff but it was both thrilling and terrifying to realize parts of that cloud were indeed rotating, the first step in becoming a genuine twister. It proves the weather can change in literally the blink of an eye. 

We were starting to get some lightning by then so I bolted back to the house. Jamie put himself in the basement, Phoenix helped me monitor windows and Connor was sound asleep. I think the Farmer was worried we were going to have to go to the basement on this one and he was going to have to carry Phoenix.

We didn't get anything out of this particular storm cell besides some heavy rain and lightning. I spent the next two hours watching live weather coverage on TV and watching live weather right outside our back door. The lightning show in the the storm cell that went to our south was spectacular after the sun set. 

Jamie came up out of the basement about 30 minutes ago — an all-clear signal if there ever was one — and I think we're headed for bed now.