Cooler!

Well we are actually getting cooler weather. Its not what I would call a cold front, more like just a slight cool down. We’ve even been getting some clouds, usually a bit later in the afternoon. And some areas have even gotten small short showers. They may be extremely localized showers. And they may be significant showers. But they don’t last long.

Today we got a few small sprinkles here at the house. Small sprinkles as in they weren’t enough to wet all the ground, just leave drop spots on the driveway.

But at least they are cooling down the area. Its 8:30pm and its down to 85 degrees. That may not sound like much but that’s down from 9pm and 90 degrees.

We’ll see how long this lasts. But at least it seems as if we will cool down enough to let plants grow and hopefully survive. The cool down will be good for gardens, at least I hope it will be.

It’s HOT!

I just saw my weather station register 106 degrees. We have clouds, and my weather alerts, that’s from area weather stations not my home weather station, has sent warnings about lightning strikes. So yes, we have hit hot here in the area.

The weather station is bouncing around the 104-106 mark.So we have hot, and I doubt we’ll get much cooler for a while.

UPDATE: it’s almost 4pm and it has begun sprinkling!

Okay, it rained for all of about 20 minutes. But that rain came in a variety of directions. The nice thing is the temperature dropped down to 74. In addition it was just rain (0.39 inches), some lightning and thunder, no hail. But now it is warming back up, we’re back up to mid 90’s in about an hour and a half.

Triple digits

We have officially hit triple digit temperatures in my back yard. Its hot and dry, 101 and 33% humidity. Plants are just dying. Lawns are getting dry patches from not getting enough water. Potted plants are not happy, animals are not happy.

Trying to walk a dog in this weather is difficult. Even at 9pm its hot, often 89 degrees. And that’s just too hot to walk my dog. And of course, at 9pm its dark. You have to take a flashlight with you.

But we will see what happens thru the rest of summer. Will it get hotter? Very possibly it will. And if it does, it will be miserable.

Drought conditions

We have crossed into stage 3 water restrictions here where I am. What does this mean? Well depending on the last number of your address you have 2 days a week where you are allowed to water. In addition are from our restrictions:

  • Outdoor watering hours will be limited to between midnight and 4 a.m. on designated days.
  • No watering allowed on Sundays
  • Watering is allowed by a hand held hose or faucet-filled bucket or water can of 5 gal or less.
  • No new landscapes will be installed.
  • Filling of swimming pools is prohibited.

I expect the garden will not be happy. And to give you an idea of how unhappy my garden is getting:

They are starting to get crispy.

HOT!

We have been hot. Most days have been high 90’s. We’ve hit 100 already, and today was 102 in the back yard. It’s now 10pm and 88 degrees outside. It does make walking my dog strange. He gets walked late, like 8:30pm, after the sun has gone down. Any earlier and its just too hot.

But the real question is how much hotter it is going to get later this summer.

So far my garden is still growing. But I have all the beds set up with drip watering. The drip heads are placed right at the base of the plant and it seems to be working well. Its keeping the water just where it needs to be. And that’s helping them to stay alive. But I don’t have much growing.

My cucumber is growing well, its big and lush. And I’ve already begun picking the cucumbers. I’ve also noticed my shishinto pepper plants have peppers on it. I have a bell pepper plant that is growing well, though I haven’t seen any fruit on it yet.

No rain

They have been warning of rain. And warning of rain. And mentioning rain.

And no rain yet.

Not only has there been no rain, the chances of rain keep diminishing. Put another way, don’t hold your breath waiting for rain to show up.

On the other hand, it looks like this weekend we just might make triple digits, I guess that’s something to look forward to. Or at least it’s notable, maybe. But as it stands, we have warm/hot weather, some breezes, some humidity. Right now, its 6pm and my back yard shows 88 degrees with 60% humidity. So I guess all I can say is same ole, same ole.

Welcome to Texas.

Rain

Last night we got rain again. It started late, around 11pm. We had a fairly heavy downpour. We actually got about one inch of rain in the first hour, then the rain slowed down. We also got a lot of wind. The wind was what alerted me to the change in weather. By morning time we had received 1.9″ of rain here at the house.

The rain made for some very interesting weather. We had a fairly warm day yesterday. But once the rain began the temperatures dropped to 60 degrees. It did warm up during today, but this evening we are back down to 60 degrees. It does made for some pleasant evening weather, I will admit. I was even able to walk my dog late in the day and found it cool. My dog liked it.

But now we have no more rain in the forecast until next week. We shall see what we get. But it was nice getting rain last night. We definitely need it.

RAIN!

They’ve been saying we had rain coming in. And today was not the best of weather. It was overcast, humid, hot, not very comfortable. Even my dog didn’t want to walk.

But low and behold, at around 10:30pm it began to rain. We dropped from a high of 95 earlier today, down to a current 63 and began to rain, lightning, thunder, and hail over here.

As of right now we have 0.64 inches of rain. Looking at the radar I don’t think we’ll get much more tonight, but maybe just a little bit. But tomorrow our high should be just under 80, someplace in the high 70’s. And Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we are expected to get more thunderstorms.

Hopefully we do. We need the rain.