That Iowa...it has everything

"It looked like Armageddon," said the paralegal who snapped this bizarre cloud photo in Cedar Rapids, IA. What was it really? "Don't know," said weather authorities... it is a newly discovered cloud formation yet unnamed.

Now you know cumulus and nimbus and and cirrus and stratocumulus,
And cirrostratus and cumolo-nimbus and fractostratus and nimbostratus,
But do you know, the most famous cloud formation of all...
It's Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer...

er, excuse me... it's really the one pictured above... which we haven't yet named. I do think Rudolph would be a great name though because it fits the rhythm of the clouds... and it just might make a new hit Christmas song. Heck, we already have the melody. (That groan you hear is Gene Autry, moaning in his grave.)

Elsewhere in the state that has it all... the umpire working a high school baseball game in West Burlington, IA got so agitated at the unruly, yelling, arguing crowd that he threw all of them out of the game. Really. He had the police evacuate the stands for (figuratively) kicking dirt on the ump's shoes. Now that's calling 'em as he sees 'em.

Must have been a slow news day.