High Plains Drifter

My decision to chase the unconventional target paid off yet again, however my tactical decisions in the field cost me the potential for much better shots of the high-based marginal supercell structure, as I know it had a beautiful high-based saucer shape if I was just positioned farther southeast when I still had light.  My target was Hobbs, NM — I had lunch there and hung out in and around town for the better part of the afternoon up until at least 5:30pm or so (CDT).  All these crappy virga showers kept forming in my target — but I have learned in the past that on the high plains…sometimes virga showers with high bases turn into something much better if you are patient.  Patience was really trying me, and the southernmost grouping of virga showers and high, flat bases was located northeast of Carlsbad, so I made a trek southwest from Hobbs in that direction.  I drove about 50 miles southwest of Hobbs and watched a group of really high bases struggle mightily.  This area, in retrospect, was too close to the hot, dry air that was impinging on the Carlsbad area.  After sitting there along highway 62, the action area was finally developing off to my northeast… just north of Hobbs!  I guess I wasn’t patient enough.  I had to drive back to Hobbs, and eventually the southernmost storm from the small cluster north of Hobbs took on some interesting supercell structure on radar.  I was southwest of the main area of interest the whole time, and given the fact I had fallen behind, I had no time to stop for images.  I finally managed to stop for some shots after I had lost pretty much all of my light (it was about 9:20pm CDT by this time) about 15 miles south of Seminole, TX.  This storm raced off to the east, but I noticed another healthy storm off to my northwest, to the northwest of Seminole, moving in the direction of Seminole.  I drove back north into town then went northwest just a few miles outside of town and got some nice staccato lightning images with a gas processing plant as a horizon line subject to the lightning.