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Welcome to the new year. Its just begun, and it means we should be in winter, but here in Texas its warm. The weather station here at the house says we’ve hit 76 degrees. This is a warm winter. Really warm. Not good. And not much rain happening either. We haven’t had much, and there’s not much in the forecast. And what little we’ve had has been really more of trace amounts. Drought, yup.

Bad winter here in Texas. Warm and no rain.

On the other hand it has allowed some interesting things. Since its warm, not yet hot, and the nights are not that cold, I’ve spent some time transplanting plants I wouldn’t normally have touched yet. I’ve had an issue with some plants in pots where the pots are disintegrating. Through time, sun, wear, other issues (weed wackers are bad for pots), some of the pots are bad (cracks and holes) even though the plants in them are good and growing. So I’ve taken this nice weather opportunity to get a jump on transplanting. Since the next 2 weeks are all nice weather, I figure it will give the plants a change to grow roots even if we do eventually get some cold.

For example in the next ten days, the coldest night (only 1) is 34, but most are in the mid 40’s. About 3 nights are even going to be in the mid 50’s. This is not winter weather. The almanac (wunderground.com) says our norm daytime temperature should be around 61, with a nighttime low of 40. Not the 76 and 47 we are looking at. It is warm with no relief in sight. It might sound nice, but its just not.

And of course it means how and when should we actually start planting seeds? Will we get some cold weather? Its possible, but nobody seems to know. And with this warm weather it could mean any plants that are growing due to the warm would suffer freeze damage if we do suddenly get a cold snap.

But because it is so warm I might use it as a chance to replant some dead plants. Since the front yard was planted by the builder, some of the plants really were not the best to put in. About 5 plants have died, at least they are crispy at this point. Their twigs snap if bent, I’d said dead. So I’m thinking this might be a good opportunity to pull them and plant something else. Why not do my best to make good use of this weather. But I’ll do it with the possibility of cold still to come.

Such is gardening work in central Texas.

For some that heading may not make sense. How can it be a bad winter when its been so warm? Well, that’s the problem. Where we’ve had a couple of cold days or nights, overall its been a warm winter. Its so warm a lot of my cold weather plants have bolted, gone to seed. We’ve been in the 60’s to low 70’s for the past week. Few nights have gotten down below 40, with most in the mid 50’s.

That may sound like great weather, but for plants its not so good. Not good freezing days and nights to kill off bugs, warm enough to put flowers out, yet its still winter. And since it is still winter, we could still have a good cold. That means any plant that is setting flowers with the possible setting of fruit will take a hit and damage if/when we do get some good cold weather.

Its so warm when I was outside today there were bees out and about in the garden. That sound great, but again, what will happen when/if we get that good cold freeze.

And with this lovely weather we’ve been having, we haven’t had much of any rain.

Bad winter.

Its 9:30 AM, Driftwood weather says 29 degrees with a wind chill of 17. Houses in the neighborhood have white spots in the corners (ice, frozen rain?). But the neighborhood roads are dry and I’ve seen cars out driving on them. Somehow we are supposed to get up to 46. We’ll see.

We warmed up to the mid 40’s, but with the breeze it was cold outside. In the sun it was warm enough for the boys (dogs) to spend time outside. One dog spent time in the sun, sitting out on the grass. But I don’t hold my breath for it to stay this nice. Tonight is supposed to be cold. Not sure what tomorrow will bring.

UPDATE: its about 9PM and we’re down to 28. It will be cold tonight!

They’ve been warning about a cold front hitting the US. Here in Austin we are getting the cold front today. The weather forecasters have said here, Austin but closer to Driftwood, we are due to get down to 27 tonight and 25 tomorrow night.

This morning, around 10AM it was a balmy 70 degrees, with humidity. We left the house at 10:50 and it was 69, humid enough to wonder about rain. Since its been overcast rain is a definite possibility. By the time we finished our appointment, around 1:30, it was down to 55 and a fine mist/sprinkle outside. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, and by the time we got home it was 45 and light rain (jacket suggested). Now at 5PM it is still 45, windy, and still light rain. They are calling for thunderstorms, and it definitely looks like that could happen. And we have a wind advisory for this evening.

Where the 45 I have listed is what I show here at our house (thank you Oregon Scientific and LaCrosse Technologies), the weather as listed on other websites show 37 right now. I believe it. My units sit on the back patio so they may read a bit warmer than if they were outside the patio. But that’s where I have them, so that’s where I get the temperature from.

The weather radar does show a wintry mix not far away from us, and that might make it here to us this evening. I expect it will. They are saying rain and freezing rain plus wind for tonight. Tomorrow we hopefully will hit the mid 40’s, then drop down to 25. We’ll see how it pans out, but it is a definite freeze hitting our area. I’ve covered what I can and pulled some plants inside the house. Let’s hope I’ve done what needs to be done.

and all that…

Well it was a cold night last night. And tonight is due to be cold again. Some weather people are saying its the coldest Halloween in 28 years. I believe it. We did hit a high of just over 50, but we are due to hit a low of freezing. Its just after 7pm and we are down to 46 already. Its cold out there.

I was good and covered the lemon tree, moved the succulents, and anything I thought might freeze close to the house. But its cold enough that some of my joints hurt, or better put my wrists ache. So do my hip joints and knees. Such is getting on with age. But better that than the alternative. I’d rather be alive than not. Even with the aches and pains. And I figure if its cold enough for me to ache, plants need to be cared for from the cold.

Well tonight is Halloween. We got our first kids around 6:45PM. I really expected to get some earlier, but no such luck. Its cold for the kids to be out so a lot of kids are well covered. And since we live in a neighborhood, we are getting kids. We probably still have too much candy, but who knows. DH is sitting by the front door handing out candy. We have the candy in a large bowl (my popcorn bowl) and we’ve been letting children just pick what they want. One bag was about 350 pieces so I’m thinking we have more candy than we will have kids. But who knows. This is a large neighborhood, we could have lots of kids come.

At any rate, tomorrow we should be up to low 60’s for our highs, though the lows will still be hovering around freezing. But by Monday we will be back into the 70’s with our lows back in the 60’s. How’s that for Texas weather.

But this is our first real cold. Will Cedar Fever follow?

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Oktoberfisch. It was a fly fishing event held in Junction, TX. I was able to drive to it, though it was about 2.5 hours from Austin. That was including the fact that some sections of the drive had 80 mph speed limits.

Junction, TX is what I would call a small town. But it does have part of the Llano River run through it so there was a place to fish. The event was held at one of the RV parks in Junction. This was not a large convention size event, but I enjoyed myself. That had a variety of classes such as casting, bug (entomology), knot tying, and even how to make furled leaders (I didn’t know what those were). They had other classes that I did not attend. They also had items for sale including flies. They even had kayaks you could use. Since this was my first time at the event, I spent more time watching than anything else, my choice.

So what does this have to do with Texas weather? Well, last weekend was hot and sunny. I even had some issues with getting overheated (possible heat exhaustion) which was my own fault. I didn’t expect it to be that hot. But this week, days after the event, we have had colder temperatures. As in we actually got down to the mid 40’s here in Austin. That is Texas weather. In a matter of days we went from low to mid 90’s to mid 40’s, and this coming week we are due to hit low to mid 30’s. That is why I give you this information.

We have gone from definite heat to cold, we even had rain. Actually the other night we had rain for a couple of hours. And yet today, Saturday we are in the low to mid 70’s with bright sunshine and not a cloud in sight. That is Texas weather for you.

The fun thing about central Texas and its weather is how much it stays the same (hot) yet how much it can change. Today we’ve gone from pretty warm, to rain, humid and muggy, sun, to rain, back to now overcast and its still in the 80’s. So it may change (sun, overcast, rain), but still stay the same (hot). But that’s the weather in this part of Texas.

On the good note, that means though its hot, its not blazing hot, plants are doing better, and with the rain I won’t have to water the next day or so.

We are due for more rain over today, tonight, tomorrow on through possibly Monday. Being central Texas we may get more of what we have today – changing from sun to rain then back again. But it also means if you begin planting seed or plants, they will get a wonderful combination of sun and rain all in the same day. So expect that we will begin seeing plants outside showing new growth.

I know seed I have put in is actually coming up. Since I’m doing it in commercial raised beds I can only hope for the best and see what happens. This past week I put in new seed. Some of my previous seed didn’t sprout. Considering that some of the seed is 3-5 years old, I can’t complain. I’ve been overseeding in the hope some will sprout. And some has, but not all of it.

And I need to get seed in as mid November is often when the weather cools and we can get our first frost. Scary thought, as that is not that far away. But we’ll see when the weather cools enough to concern ourselves with a frost.

On a different note, as we have been settling into the new house I have found a weather station. Its boxed, has all the parts, and looks fairly new. So given some help I hope to actually get it set up, and somehow figure out how to put the information online. Don’t expect this done quickly, I’m still doing most things myself while being a caregiver to my spouse. So bear with me as things take me some time. But with luck, I can get a weather station up and running, and with more luck get it online.

Wish me luck.

How do you really know when the weather is cooling down? Well over here I can tell by the hot water. When we are hot and just stay hot, hot water comes out of the tap quickly, quickly enough for you to burn yourself if you’re not careful. We’ve gotten blasting hot water out of the tap first thing in the morning in well under 3 seconds. But as the weather cools down we actually have to wait a couple of seconds, not much more than 10-15 seconds if that, to get hot water. But that’s nice because it means the cold water can actually be at least cool instead of lukewarm. Fun notes about weather and how it affects various things in our lives.

This is all a nice way of saying we’re starting to slowly cool down. Our highs are down in the low 90’s instead of triple digits. And our evenings have even hit a low of 70, instead of upper 70’s. This is Austin’s way of saying we are working our way into Autumn.

Hopefully we’ll get a weather station set up here at the house and I’ll be able to get more accurate readings and data. Hopefully that can happen soon.

What is up with this crazy weather! we are still in the 90’s. Today will be a cool down to all of 91, that’s a cool down. But we won’t stay there long. Tomorrow, Labor Day we will be back up to 97, with 99 by the end of the week.

This is not helping my garden. Plants are drying up. Even those in the shade part of the day are not faring well. Though the peas are still coming up. The tomato plant is alive but not producing anything but one small cherry tomato.

And don’t forget about Hurricane Dorian hitting the Bahamas, and expected to just touch the outer edge of Florida. But the Bahamas, the northern parts are expected to take the brunt of the storm. As of this post, I’ve heard Dorian is a category 5 hurricane, with sustained winds of 180 mph. They are calling it the strongest hurricane in modern records.

And yet here in Texas its hot and dry. We’ve had occasional rain but not that much. More would be nice. Lots of areas are on burn bans, no burning of trash or things. Some cooler weather and rain would be nice right about now. How it shows up soon.

Yes, once again we have 90-100 degree weather, but yesterday we got it coupled with rain. A short, probably no more than 15 minutes, thunderstorm down pour. This is just the way Texas likes to do rain. Keep it hot, and let it pour. Who knows why Texas does it this way? I don’t.

When I check out weather radar, you might see little patches of rain. And during this time of the year, it may develop slowly or suddenly. One minute its nice and sunny, maybe a few puffy clouds, then 10 minutes later you realize its dark outside. Then of course, it begins to pour. It starts with a few fat drops going splat all over the place. Then those few drops get their friends together and that heavy droplet sprinkle becomes a down pour. Yesterday we even got it with lightning and thunder.

Today we still have some clouds, but at least they are still light in color. Once that changes, if they become dark, I’ll move us all inside and wait for the rain. Not sure if it will rain, but if the clouds are dark there’s a pretty good chance it will happen.

We’ll see how today’s weather progresses. The next few days are still supposed to hover around 100. So much for it cooling down. It has to cool down sometime, I’m just not sure when that will happen.