The 15th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity is taking place in Norman this week. There is also actual lightning. I left Norman Thursday evening after helping out with the conference and met an ongoing cluster of strong to marginally severe thunderstorms near Binger, OK. The easternmost cell began propagating slowly eastward, developing a couple transient areas of low-level rotation and producing quite a bit of CG lightning. I set up just off Route 81 south of El Reno as the sun finally dropped far enough to allow lightning shots. Outflow winds sustained at 40+ mph made it nearly impossible to keep the camera steady on the tripod.
At least one flash connected with the ground between me and the horizon:
I missed quite a few close CGs. The storms slowly began to slide east and with several flashes reaching ground less than a mile away, it was time to reposition east down Reno.
I dropped south and east into Mustang, then headed for the hill on Highway 9 west of Norman. The storms had almost stalled again and were too far away. After some maneuvering around Blanchard, I gave up and made for the OU parking garage. There wasn't much to the storms at that point, but a small cell to the west fought off nocturnal cooling long enough to spit out several more CGs.
