July 4, 2007 Perryton, TX

The target on this day was southwest Kansas, but shear was blah and the chances for a supercell were slim. We lingered around “old town” Burlington, toured some tornado damage in Holly, CO (from a storm in late March), and then caught some semi-strong storm development south of Dodge City, KS. A tail-end cell south of Minneola had that “look” for a few minutes. A wall cloud looked to be rotating decently, but it quickly fell apart. We played in some small hail and drifted south into Oklahoma, enjoyed a CG barrage at the Tin Man’s corner near Laverne, and watched a menacing sky descend upon us from the north. There was little else to go after or hope for, so I phoned for rooms in Perryton, with the hope of catching the fireworks display in town. We arrived at dusk and learned that the local display was at a lake 15 miles or so south of town. We were tired and hungry and elected to invade the Pizza Hut. Meanwhile, a nice cell was developing just west-northwest of Perryton, with very pretty lightning in the updraft region. I decided to forget about eating and tried some more lightning photography. I set up my tripod in the side street next to Pizza Hut and pointed the camera down the residential street towards the west. Someone in town was shooting off fireworks, and one of my exposures captured both lightning and fireworks!