Overlooked photos, day 7 - Mount Pleasant, Iowa

Today's overlooked photo comes from the beloved state of Iowa. On the heels of my intercept of the June 7 2008 tornado producing monster, I was giddy. June 12 2008 looked somewhat similar with the presence of an east-west oriented boundary and the approach of a strong shortwave. I had high hopes of carrying my early June momentum, and set sail for northwest Illinois. During the afternoon I was able to meet up with long time chasing pals Colin Davis and Scott Kampas in Galesburg.

Two supercells exploded during the late afternoon in northern Missouri and immediately began producing tornadoes, but we held our ground for some time. Eventually it became apparent that northwest Illinois would not get the job done, and our only hope was to cross the border into Iowa. We held off for a long time, but it eventually was very clear that it was either cross into Iowa and likely get screwed over in some fashion, or get a grade A sun tan on the east side of the river.

The rest is history. The menacing tornado producing supercell immediately became a still menacing storm visually, but completely outflow driven and tornado production came to an end. Of course, this photo has little to do with that first storm. No... hope still lived on for the hopeful trio from Illinois. Another supercell had gone tornadic to our southwest. Fighting data issues we shot south in efforts to get ahead of the new supercell near Mount Pleasant. History repeats itself for what seems like the millionth time. The storm goes outflow dominant, and refuses to produce tornadoes any longer.

This photo shows the dying supercell as it nears Mount Pleasant, Iowa. We were treated to some cool outflow air and a pretty rainbow, before heading home with another serving of shattered dreams from the state of Iowa.