Hodgkin painted this work whilst travelling in Oklahoma during 1977. It is based upon hearing about, rather than seeing, the recent storm that had engulfed the area.The feelings Hodgkin experiences are captured in intense colours. People and objects are transformed into expressive splotches, swirls and blobs of paint, the elements that constitute his own visual vocabulary. Hodgkin has said: 'I am a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations'.