Month: August 2021

Weather?

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Okay, this is a slightly different posting. I’m actually posting from an airport, DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) to be precise. I’m on my way to CA for a few days, not exactly a fun trip, but a necessary trip.

But I’m posting this for a reason. For some reason my flight has been delayed, for 2 hours. This delay has meant I will miss my connecting flight. I’ve had to rebook the various legs to get me to CA. Why the delay? I have no clue. But I do know that when I got to the airport a number of flights were listed as delayed, some as long as 4 hours.

While on the short jaunt to DFW from Austin, I listened to others complaining. One guy mentioned his wife as on a flight due to leave at 8AM. He said it actually left at 1:45pm, over 5 hours late. Another guy mentioned that someone he knew was on a flight that had to be rerouted to Oklahoma City for refueling. It seemed that wherever they were going they couldn’t land and had to circle. They circled so long they had to reroute in order to refuel.

As I sat in a restaurant grabbing a bite to eat, the guy next to me said he had been on a flight. They had canceled the flight from Key West to wherever, possibly DFW. That was on Saturday, due to a storm coming in. They didn’t give him any sort of hotel nor food vouchers. He was able to beg a room from someone. It is now Monday and he still hasn’t finished his flight home. He’s hoping his 8pm flight will still occur and he will get home.

Is this all weather related? I don’t know. I do know that I wanted earlier flights in order to minimize the chance of storms here in the DFW area. And of course with the rain we had in Austin, I can watch storm clouds building over DFW. Summer storms can happen in this area, so it’s something I do think about.

Will I make it out as planned. I hope so. But what I do know is that the weather is affecting flights. Its affecting far more than just gardens.

Even though the other day my garden got 0.67 inches, the news said some areas got up to 2.5 inches of rain. And yes that did include some thunder and thunderstorms. That wasn’t just some little storm leaving sprinkles in its wake. So before you think weather is just about your garden, it can affect a lot more – flights, roads, flooding, landslides, and so much more.

Beware weather changes.

Rain

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Darn if we didn’t get rain again. Today started out a bit cloudy, but nothing I thought would amount to much. Just goes to show you how much I know, or rather how much I have to learn.

I went to church, something I’ve recently begun doing on Sundays, and after the church service, around 12:15, I walked outside to the beginning of sprinkles. It didn’t looking like dark clouds. And I didn’t actually think it would amount to much. I hadn’t heard that rain was due. I must have missed that part of the forecast. But it began it rain. Nothing heavy. Just a slow constant drizzle. And it rained for almost the next 8 hours. As I write this, its about 9:45PM and the rain has stopped and the clouds are breaking up. I even walked the dogs. That’s how dry its become.

And yet throughout that entire time we only got 0.67 inches of rain. So when I say it was a slow rain, it was a slow light rain. And the weather forecast says we might be having more rain.

Unfortunately for the next couple of weeks I will not be posting. I will be online, but out of the area so I will not be posting anything. Hopefully nothing new or earth shattering will happen while I’m gone.

I pulled out some of the old plants, like the cucumber and pumpkin plants. They were not doing great. The pumpkin plants were not seeds I planted this year, they were volunteer plants. I pulled up the swiss chard plant. That will need to be replanted. I’m also figuring I will reseed some carrots, maybe beets, and some lettuce for my fall crops. My beans are still in the ground, as are some peppers, and a couple of tomato plants. And they will probably continue growing. Having some rain while I’m gone wouldn’t be a bad thing.

After pulling the plants up, I turned the soil so it will be ready for fall planting. I do need to add some soil back into the beds. Hopefully that is something I can do when I get back. I’ll have a bit of gardening work to do when I return.

Temperatures

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Its 5pm and its all of 90 degrees outside. But the norm is 99. How’s that for a cool down?

And yes, the cool front that is keeping our temperatures down today is the same one that brought us the rain yesterday. And we may still have a little more rain Thursday. But by this weekend we may be back to the high 90’s.

Lucky us.

More rain

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Last nights rain continued. How much rain did we actually get, well that’s a good question. It appears my weather station at some point got reset and the time was off. So when I went to bed last night at midnight by my watch, it didn’t match the time on the weather station. So even though it said 0.79 inches what it continued to add until midnight its time, when it would have reset for the new day is anybody’s guess.

And to add to it last night was a night of lightning, thunder, rain, and power outages. We actually had 2 power outages that I know of.

Nonetheless today, now at 9:45pm we have 3.08 inches of rain on the weather station. We didn’t have any more power outages during the day. But we did have a couple more thunderstorms. Both last night, and this evening we have had downpours. The kind where the wind blows, the sky darkens, and the rain pours down.

Today we got to all of 77 degrees. I know because that was around 2:45 when I walked the dogs. But by 5pm it wasn’t much warmer. And then shortly after 5:30ish it began to pour. I was at the friends for dinner and we could watch it darken then watch rain begin to pour from the skies. It didn’t last too long, but it probably gave us a good 1/2 or more inches of rain.

Now at almost 10pm we have the before mentioned 3.08 inches of rain, and 72 degrees. For summer in Austin that is a bit below the norm. Yet tomorrow we should get up to the low 90’s (92 is the forecast) and our chances of rain drop down to 20%. The chance of rain drops after that, the sun will begin coming out and by Sunday we should be high 90’s (forecast for Sunday is 98).

As for the garden, I’m still harvesting Anaheim chilies. And it looks like there are some green beans ready to be harvested. But I’m not sure how the tomato plants are taking the downpours. I’m expecting the answer is going to be not great. I know some plants in pots are getting blown over due to the wind.

Crazy weather.

Rain

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We have had hot weather. For the most part its been hot and dry. The temps have been in the mid 90’s. Well today we had heat, then in mid afternoon the temperature dropped from 91 degrees down to about 88 and it began pouring. It a matter of minutes rain began and the wind began blowing. In the space of a short time we went from no rain to 0.72 inches. It is now almost midnight and we have moved up to 0.77 inches of rain.

It’s lightning and thundering outside and the temperature is down to 75.

Welcome to a strange summer in Central Texas.