5-21-04 Central and East Central Iowa

Outflow boundary from early severe MCS over central and eastern Iowa. I extend my sympathies to all who suffered loss this day.

Tornado near Grundy Center, IA. looking to the east.  Note smaller funnel on left side of pic.This was pretty much the story of the day for us...about 1/2 step behind watching from the cheap seats. Frustrating, but better than Wednesday's bust.

Enhanced crop and blow up of the video the capture to the leftt came from. Not the best quality but is a pretty good example of the elements which make up a ground contact.

10 miles W/SW of Shellsberg, IA looking SE. This will hammer Palo, IA within minutes.  Quickly became rain wrapped and we lost visual.

How is this for low LCL's? Almost looks like fog!

100 yard wide swath of trees mangled by what may have been a rain wrapped tornado south of Anamosa, IA. Sorry, no pic of the tornado unless you want to see a white-green wall!

Mud totally covering the road as we head north out of Cedar Rapids, IA.

New development to our northwest as we head home.

Ominous view to the west as we approach Waverly, IA

Huge rotating supercell with very low base just outside of Waverly, IA. Nearly dark out now. Spectacular shelf coming at us with high winds.

TOR warned as we drop south then head through Denver, IA before nightfall finally puts an end to the chase.   Great bonus to the day.

2004 Chases Home