August 4th, 2007: Cherokee, Iowa
Finally a day in Iowa with a storm. Amy and I hung out on the north side of Spencer at a gas station with 3 trucks carrying enormous windmills blades. Apparently these are the small ones, the larger ones are 40 feet more. We headed southwest when the storms formed and picked the NE of the two storms to follow, having already been there. We gave up on it and got to the SW one west of Cherokee just as the warning was issued. The wall cloud was visible andthen poof it was gone, likely obscured by rain. We headed east through town for about 2 miles, almost got stuck behind a train, and then set up to see the lapses in the video below. There was a great deal of motion, though nothing very organized. We left around 9 PM, slept for 2 hours at a rest stop in MN, and got home around 4.
Video:
Video Link: 3.6MB WMV
One of the windmill trucks:
The two storms didn't look very different, both had rain to the east and south, unobscured to the southeast, so we hung around the northern one for too long. We should have gone south enough to have both in view.
Lots of motion.
Miles: ~500?
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