storm

Another day, another storm

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The much hyped storm made it here today. It was strong wind (I’m pretty sure I heard a tree branch cracking), rain (by 10pm it was 3 inches), some hail (smaller, pea sized), and of course lightning and thunder. The good news is it looks like tomorrow will not be some of the same. Tomorrow might be some rain early, but then clearing. I’m hoping for the clearing part.

Just a little side note. Due to the hail last Sunday, we have had many salesmen from roofing companies come around. There are over half a dozen signs in peoples yards advertising who will be doing their roof work. I’m in that list. The hail Sunday didn’t puncture holes in the shingles, but it did damage. My roof is one year old, but it is now damaged by hail.

Oh yea.

It’s HOT!

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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.

WOW!

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They mentioned severe storms for today. I know earlier they mentioned possible tornadoes, unusual for this area.

Well, we have had confirmed at least 4 tornadoes as this time (7pm). Taylor, Hutto, Round Rock, Elgin, even an area called Kalahari Resort have all been hit. One tornado crossed a freeway flyover, near I-35 and I-45. At this point there are areas with some damage, how much I don’t know. Some areas are without power. At one point they even said possible tornado in Wimberley, close by where I live.

It is a very unusual situation here. First of all, we don’t get many tornadoes show up in this area. But having a number of tornadoes all happening at the same time comes under the the extremely unusual situation description. From what I can tell, most of the tornadoes have not been in highly populated area, downtown Austin didn’t get hit, but outer areas of Austin are getting hit.

According to the news channel I’ve been watching, at least one doppler unit got hit, either by tornado or lightning. I’m sure more information will be coming in.

I’m sure damage reports will be coming in later today. As of right now, they have said there is damage, but they have not mentioned how much damage.

I even feel for the weather people on tv. They have been broadcasting nonstop for well over an hour.

UPDATE: 03/24/2022

How many confirmed separate tornadoes did the Austin area get? Actually I don’t have an answer for that. I wish I did. But the NWS (National Weather Service) is in the process of confirming various information about the different tornadoes that we had. What I can glean from the news includes:

Round Rock area had a confirmed tornado. It crossed over a freeway intersection (I-35 and 4), taking out a light standard, caused damage to a bank, and a resort in the area. At this time I am not sure if they have confirmed strength.

Wimberley is said to have a confirmed tornado.

Areas near Tayor and Manor had confirmed tornadoes. Areas near Elgin also had confirmed tornado activity.

At this time I’m not sure if some of these may have been one tornado that merely moved, or what. But I’m sure more information will be released in time. Suffice it to say, the greater Austin area saw its share of tornadoes this past week.

The day after

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Last night, or rather early this morning, at 1AM I got up. Last night was our coldest night expected. And at 1AM it was 19 degrees outside. How much lower did it actually get, I’m not sure. Considering the forecast for this area was 18 I’m betting we dropped below that.

Yesterday, during the day time, I had a small space heater blowing near where my water softener attaches to the house water. Last year that was where it froze and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. I wanted to make sure water was running, so when I turned the heater off, it was to run a tap in one of the spare bathrooms. They said to run it farthest from where water comes in. I didn’t choose that faucet since that was attached to the room I was sleeping in and I didn’t want to listen to dripping water all night. But I did pick the next best. The good news is that running the space heater had heated the area near the water softener to 50 degrees, I had a thermometer near it. Even with out it running all night that area was about 45 this morning. And the water was running okay too.

As for today it is now 2:30 PM and here at my house we have made it up to 40 degrees. Ice is melting, and has been sliding off the roof top. Most of it slid off this morning, and I could hear it, especially when I walked outside, or opened the door. Most of it is now gone, other than those areas that don’t get much sun light.

With this temperature most of the glass areas are now wet, but no longer frozen. Some area, those that have had all day sun, those areas are actually dry. Most of the roads area dry too.

It was dry enough I was actually able to walk Linus, my dog. One thing I notice out on my walk was flying icicles. This morning we had some wind, I noted 8mph on my weather station. Consequently, it was shaking trees. That shaking, at least I’m guessing here, was able to dislodge ice from the trees and send it flying. I even have ice pieces in the middle of my driveway. I’m guessing this is a result of the flying ice, since there is no other easy explanation – no tree limbs over my driveway.

As for the yard, the ice yesterday left one of my apple trees bent over. As of right now its still bent over, but it has not broken. So I’m guessing it has survived so far. It doesn’t look like any limbs broke on any of my trees. I consider that a good thing. I shouldn’t lose any trees from this storm.

It was nice getting out for the walk, but it was cold. I was glad to get back into the house. I will say the birds ate all the birdseed I had out. I mean all the bird seed. It was empty, not much stuck to the bottom even. I did refill it today. I’m sure the brds will be happy for that.

Cold is coming

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We started this morning with a nice mid 50’s. It was overcast but okay weather. That was this morning.

Now, 7pm we have dropped just below 40 and we expect it to continue dropping.

I stopped at the grocery story today after exercise. It was packed with people. I often go to the grocery store after exercise. It makes sense since one grocery store is about 3 doors down, the other grocery store is on the way home. Either way, it makes sense to go to the grocery store after exercise. What this means is I know how busy it usually would be today, at these grocery stores. Well, today was definitely different. If you didn’t get a basket out in the parking lot, they were hard to come by. Some items were out, clean shelves.

And there were a lot of people in the stores. Instead of maybe 2 people in line, there were 6-8. Carts were full, some with what I thought were strange items. One couple had a card loaded with large 2 liter soda bottle, and I mean loaded. They were stacked upright, then stacked upside down in between the upright bottles. And it was a full cart. Small cartons of milk were all gone. I was lucky enough to snag a medium size bottle, but I saw one guy trying to carry 4 large gallon size jugs of milk. Some canned goods were sold out too.

I’m sure now at this time of night, even thought the stores would normally be open, I’m sure they are pretty cleaned out and empty.

I’ve even heard schools are closed both Thursday and Friday. The new forecast says a low of 26 tonight. Tomorrow will be a high of 29 with a low of 17. Then Friday it will be a high of 36 with a low of 19. Since we have rain already, albeit light precipitation, it will probably turn into ice. They are expecting freezing rain tonight.

Earlier today, before I left for exercise I covered plants, turned off water, and covered the hose bibs. Since yesterday we got over an inch of rain, I’m not worried about the plants needing watering. Hopefully everything will make it through this cold. We’ll see.

Another cool down

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The weather forecasts have been warning of another cool down. Yesterday, Friday, we had some lovely warm weather. And that is warm weather we’ve had for a few days. But today, its cool and wet. It now just after 2pm, and its 49 degrees outside. Early this morning, I don’t know what time but it was dark, a storm rolled in. We actually had thunder, I’m not sure about lightning, and only a small amount of rain. As of now, 2pm, we’ve only had 0.38 inches of rain. That’s really not much. And the rain came in a slow drizzle type of rain.

But it will be cool to cold the next few days. The low for tonight is forecast to be 36. Tomorrow, Sunday our high is forecast for 49, with a low of 35. None of that should affect many plants. I say many as basil is notorious for dying in cool to cold weather. I don’t trust basil in anything below 40 personally.

But by Monday our high will be back up to 60, with a low of 37. Then we stay in the 60-70’s for highs, with lows mainly in the 50’s. Next Saturday is Christmas and we’re forecast for 76, with a low of 56. Even New Year’s day (the start of 2022) it looks like a high of 66, with a low of 49.

Welcome to this year’s winter in central Texas. At least the start of winter. The rest of the season remains to be seen what transpires.

The cold comes

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We have a cold front coming. It will bring cold weather and rain. Here where I live they are looking for 2-3/4 inches of rain. We’ll see what happens. Today was a nice mid 70, but tomorrow we may make a high in the middle of the day in the low 50’s.The actual high for the day will be around midnight, then the temperatures will just do a slow drop. The nights for the next few days, those will be the mid to low 40’s. That’s how cold we will get.

Since this is Central Texas, we’ll actually have to wait and see what actually happens. But it does look like we have some cold weather on the way. But … by next week it may be back up to the high 70’s-low 80’s.

I don’t expect the garden to like this weather. I actually expect we’ll lose some plants. But that’s the way it goes. And that’s what is supposed to happen. At least it should mean my peas will be happy and start producing. So that is something to look forward to.

One sad note. I lost one of my dogs. My Clifford passed away a couple of days ago. Its now just me and Linus. We’re figuring out how to make our new normal something we can both deal with. And Linus is not entirely taking well to being an only child. He doesn’t know how to sleep alone. I’ve actually had to begin sleeping with him, not something I actually enjoy. But for the love of my dog, I will do what it takes. He’s my child, my fur baby.

Rain

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Last night a storm blew through. The rain didn’t start until after nightfall, it began well after 9pm. It was accompanied by quite a lightning show. Here where I live we also had to deal with short power outages. By short, they lasted less than a minute. But they were long enough to turn all the lights off, reset the tv, reset the microwave clock, etc.

The first power outage happened around 10pm. I had checked the weather gauge just before the power went out, logged it, and we had already had 0.55 inches of rain. Within minutes we had another power outage. The outages were pretty close together. But they did cause the rain gauge to reset itself.

By morning the weather station had recorded 3.75 inches of additional rain. We didn’t seem to have any more power outages throughout the night, at least not here where I live.

So last night’s storm left us with about 4.3 inches of rain, give or take a bit (0.55 + 3.75). We might get some more today, but once this passes we should be free of the rain. But we will be getting a definite cool front. As that matter goes, we should make a high of 85 today, yet drop to a high of 79 tomorrow, then by Sunday be a high of 69 and a low of 43.

It shouldn’t be cold enough to harm plants growing, but it might stop a few of them from doing much. But typical Texas weather, by mid next week we will be back up to around 80 degrees.

Its raining

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Rain has begun. In just less than an hour we already have just shy of 2 inches and it is pouring. It is lightning and thunder, and rain.

It began with fat big droplets of rain. I went out to check the noise and it was hot, humid and the rain was beginning.

Now, its down to 71 degrees and its still raining. In the time I’ve been writing this we’ve crossed into 2.16 inches of rain, and its still pouring out there. It is quite a storm out there. And we are due for rain for the next few days.

Its a good thing rain, lightning, and thunder doesn’t bother the dogs.

It has been raining now an hour and we’ve just crossed the 2.5 inch mark of rain.

Still getting rain

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We’re still getting some rain here. Yesterday, 7/6 I woke up to find we had gotten 0.45 inches of rain. Today we’ve gotten 0.16 inches, all in one short microburst. Its was just “boom” it was raining, rained for a short couple of minutes, then it was over.

The only nice thing about this weather is we’ve been in the mid 80’s, sometimes low 80’s instead of the mid 90’s we could normally expect. The cooler weather is nice to have.

But at least we’re lucky, we could be Florida. That area has been dealing with Hurricane Elsa. It made landfall today in north Florida. Its on its way to Georgia (probably there already). Its expected to be in North Carolina tomorrow morning, so it will probably make it way through South Carolina this evening. It should make Massachusetts by Friday, then by Saturday it will be back out to sea. At least that is what they are expecting. I’m sure we will be hearing about the destruction its causing soon enough.

I’ll try to keep posting about both our rain here, and Hurricane Elsa.