A maddening navigational error, gambling on a back-road shortcut that turned out to be flooded 15 miles in, made me backtrack 20 minutes each way onto a different, longer route, wondering what I had missed, barely able to return to the front of a growing storm cluster with embedded supercells. Yet that frustration became a blessing in disguise when I finally got back ahead of the storms, to be greeted and blessed by this—a scene not possible on my original path. With all the outflow heaving forth from the storm behind me, I knew this one had no chance to be tornadic, and that was not a problem whatsoever. The marvelous, near-sunset light, filtered through layers and textures of clouds, rain and sky, above fields of wavy green, amidst the warbling of meadowlarks and fresh aroma of rain-cooled outflow from a different cell to my rear, melted away all tensions and left nothing but the moment in its splendor.
7 SW Mangum OK (9 May 19) Looking W
34.7887, -99.5624