Author: admincatsg

Another storm

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Its Sunday, Mother’s Day, and we’ve been warned of another storm. We had a warm day of 85 degrees here at the house. It wasn’t a bright sunny day, it was more of an overcast and humid day. Walking the dogs was not a fun experience. Even the dogs didn’t enjoy it.

Now, at after 10PM its down to 78, but our humidity is up to 86%. Though I will say the clouds tonight were rather spectacular. There was a a layer of dark clouds, with these salmon pink clouds underneath them.

It does appear there are a few areas around here that are feeling the effects of this storm. Some areas are even supposed to get hail, again. So we will wait and see if we get rain here. We may get some still, even if its later tonight.

We shall see.

More rain

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Its just after 3pm and we’ve got 2 inches today since midnight, AND we just got the first Flash Flood Warning for the area. So since yesterday we’ve had over 3 inches of rain.

“At 227 PM CDT, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rain across the warned area. The expected rainfall rate is 1 to 3 inches in 1 hour. Additional rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are possible in the warned area. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly.

HAZARD…Life threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms producing flash flooding.”

And on Monday we expect to hit 90. This is Texas weather.

UPDATE: Since my last post less than half an hour ago we now have 2.33 inches of rain.

6:30pm We now have 2.63 inches of rain. Its raining be very light, more like a mist.

9:25pm: The rain is slowing down. But we still have 2.75 inches of rain since midnight at this location today.

Misty rain

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Its still wet outside. Its early afternoon and its wet. Its all of 66 degrees, and wet. Not raining down on you wet. But far more waves of heavy mist type of rain. As of now we have 0.26 inches of rain, wetness would be a much better description than rain. But it also looks like it will continue for a while. The one nice thing is it is the kind of moisture that will sink into the soil or pots or whatever it comes into contact with. Though if you were walking outside in cotton I’m pretty sure it would soak into your clothing well and leave you a cold wet mess. Provided of course that being 66 degrees and soaking wet would be cold to you. It would be to me.

But it also means that plants, where they don’t have rain falling down on them will be getting definite moisture today. But as for how much rain it will measure out to, that remains to be seen.

UPDATE: Its 10:30PM and we’ve now got 1.15 inches of rain. Even as I look at my rain gauge it has increased to 1.17 inches of rain. So we will get more before midnight. So yup, we have rain.

Thursday Storm

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Well, we got rain, lightning, hail in some areas, and lots of thunder. We also got all of 1.23 inches of rain here at this location just today. The forecast still says we may get rain, actually thunderstorms, Friday and Saturday. Will we actually get much, well that still remains to be seen. Hopefully Sunday stays dry as they currently predict. But our temperatures are still warm, mid 70’s with Monday going for 90 degrees. Yes its humid out there.

But some areas have gotten big teacup size hail. Damage comes along with anything that size hail hits. Image someone throwing or dropping a softball from the sky onto your car. Well that gives you an idea of what to expect from that size hail hitting a windshield. Falling on a person isn’t going to be any better.

With any luck, we will get more rain, but a few less hail storms.

Storms ahead

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Its late April and we are looking for thunderstorms and severe weather starting tonight. South west Texas, down by Del Rio, has already received baseball sized hail. This storm is heading toward San Antonio and Austin. Where I am, in Austin/Dripping Springs area, we are also waiting for storms. The temperature right now, almost 8pm, is 78 with 81% humidity. The humidity has been climbing the past short while, couple of hours, and is expected to continue climbing. They have warned that we will get rain, some estimates say 2-3 inches of rain. We shall see. But we also have a tornado watch.

We are also forecast to have rain and thunderstorms Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday should be just isolated thunderstorms. But through it all we should be in the 70-80’s. This kind of warm weather with storms, heavy humidity, happens in this area. Its not the most comfortable weather, but its what we sometimes get. And yes, it can make for some uncomfortable times.

At this point, I don’t know what we’ll get for storms, rain, or weather. But then that’s the reality of living in this area.

I’ll keep you posted on what we get.

Weather again

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Yesterday was cold, hardly making 60 degrees. They did warn of warmer weather, with storms today.

Here at the house I’ve had all of 0.24 inches of rain so far, but even now, at almost 6:30pm its 72 with 93% humidity. That’s Texas weather. But some areas have had 5.5″ in two hours, and that’s south and east of where I am. One person in Blanco Co. say they got maybe a couple of drops. Maybe! So what I’ve had here is not indicative of what other areas received.

But some areas of Texas look like they have experienced, or are still getting much worse weather. The weather service had even warned of hail and tornadoes, possibly later this evening. And the storm is working its way east. Parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma are still in the path of the storm. And tomorrow it will be areas like Atlanta that are expecting thunderstorms.

So where we got rain, not all areas got much, yet some areas got a lot of rain. We did have hard rain for a while, and we heard thunder, and I got reports of lightning. And yet now its just warm and muggy outside.

Tomorrow we can look forward to warm sunny weather. Saturday should be 81 and sunny, Sunday 88 and sunny. But by Tuesday we will be 86 with strong afternoon/evening thunderstorms. Such is weather in Central Texas.

First 90

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Yes, Texas, at least central Texas has finally had its first 90 degree day. We had it just the other day. Even the news mentioned it’s about 10-14 days early from our normal first 90 degree day. Earlier and earlier. Anyone who doesn’t believe weather is changing, yes even those that think this is normal, may want to actually look at what is happening, not what we think if happening.

I say this because we have to actually look at the weather that is outside our door as opposed to what history says should be happening. Since its not yet the middle of April, and we’ve hit 90 degrees already, no matter what the planning guides say, we need to start being aware of heat.

Last year we had 40+ triple digit days, days where we hit or passed 100 degrees. That may not seem that bad, but remember that here in Texas, especially this area, the days are hot, but so are our nights. So where we may have 100 degree days, the nights may only get down to 80 degrees or there about. So 100 degree day is not usually followed by a cool night of say 60-70. And with that kind of heat we also frequently get very humid. We may not get rain, but we get humidity.

This combination means mold, of a variety of types, which can be problems for plants.

If we have already begun 90 degree days, we need to consider not only the heat, but any humidity we get. Some of the weather station even show with the temperature expected a “muggy meter”. It may sound cute, but it is something we need to consider here in this area.

For our upcoming week, we will have something of a cooling of the weather. Starting Tuesday (today is Sunday) we will drop about 10 degrees to the mid to upper 70’s and begin getting a chance of run. The current forecast says we could expect upwards of 3/4 to 1.25 inches of rain. We could use the rain.

Beginning soon I may begin a gardening journal on this website. Where this year has already been interesting weather, it was just a couple of months ago that we had snow, and now we have 90 degree weather, I had begun noticing “surprise” plants in my garden. I call them surprise plants since I had not yet planted anything in those areas. I would have thought that the snow would have killed off some of the seeds left over from last year. But since I now have seeds coming up, I can only guess that they are left over seeds from last year.

Here comes the heat

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Yes, it wasn’t that long ago we were worried about our cold weather. This week, starting Wednesday April 7 we are due to hit 90 degrees. And we will spend 3 days at 90 degrees. According to the weather station I listen to, that is a week early on average for this area.

So welcome to the heat of Texas.

In anticipation of the summer temperatures here, I just had a pergola/deck cover installed over my outside deck. It looks like it showed up just in time. They are still working on the pergola, they delivered the wood and stained in on Thursday last week. They didn’t work Friday as it was Good Friday. But today they put it up, with just a bit of work to still do.

I am having a product called Polygal put on. We’ll see how I like it. I’m not quite sure how to describe it since I haven’t yet seen it. I’ll let you know what it is, and what I think of it once it gets installed.

Rain and hail

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They said we would have a storm and we got one. We got both rain and hail, some hail 1-1/2 inches round. Between two different rain gauges, one said we had 1 inches (that was the one you buy and set out, its a physical container), and the other one said 0.72 inches (that was from the new weather station).

But we finally got some much needed rain. Most of this area is in some level of drought. But true to Texas weather, we had a lovely 70+ degree day, going for mid 80’s tomorrow and Saturday. Though Saturday and Sunday we are due for more rain. Hopefully that will happen. And if our luck holds, we might even get some rain next week. But of course, you never know.

One interesting item is that though tomorrow and Saturday are due to be in the low/mid 80’s, Sunday we are due to drop into the mid 60’s. We’ll see if that happens.

But at least it looks like central Texas has officially hit spring.

Weather station

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I know I’ve mentioned I put in a new weather station, but I still have the old weather station up. Just as a refresher, the new one is an all in one unit on my fence line, out in the open. The old one has part of it up against the house (the temperature and humidity gauge), and the wind portion on my deck.

Right now the new one, way out in the open shows a temperature of 65 with a humidity of 98%. The old one shows a temperature of 67 with a humidity of 92%.

I find this interesting as I think the new one out in the open may be a more accurate reading. I did learn that the new unit rain gauge resets itself at midnight. The other night we got rain late, after 11PM. I checked the reading just before midnight and it read 0.19. But the next morning it read 0.09. So we got total of about 0.28 inches of rain. And yes, this is why I wanted the new weather station. I think getting more accurate readings will help me better care for my garden.

Just as a side note, I’ve been dumping some pots from our storm last month. Some of the plants look like they are coming back, and some seeds took off. I actually have some seeds coming up from last year that hadn’t germinated. But for pots on my deck, many of which were cutting of other plants, I decided that I didn’t really have a reason to keep them, and some I just didn’t want to keep. How many pots of the same succulent did I want!! Do I’ve been teasing roots and plants out of pots and putting the dirt into one big pot to reuse. And I figure I will check the pots, see which are worth keeping, and reuse them for planting something else.

One other note, I had purchased some starter plants at Home Depot the other week, tomatoes and peppers. They are doing great. I also broke down and purchased a grow light from Amazon. I have a sun room, that I am going to turn into a plant room. I have plants in there on a bakers rack. Now I am putting my seed pots in there, with the grow light. Since it is an indoor room the temperature in there is always house warm, but the light is a different story. Hopefully the grow light will help the seedlings. We’ll see.