storm

Happy Fourth of July

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They have warned of rain. Its not a continuous rain that we get here. And they’ve been warning of it for day. Well, it does strike. And I use the word strike as that is what just happened. In the space of less than 15 minutes we have gotten 3/4′ of rain. We’ve spent the day with clouds, some blue skies, and yet suddenly the skies darkened and rain began. It has been 15 minutes now since it first began, and where the rain has slowed, we still have 0.77 inches in the back yard. It well may stop shortly, but by then we may well hit .80 inches of rain.

And being that its still mid afternoon, its possible we could get more rain later this day or tonight.

This is how rain comes in central Texas.

At least the yard and the garden got watered.

UPDATE: its almost 11pm and we’ve topped out at 0.82 inches of rain. But rain is in the forecast the rest of the week. I’ll keep you posted.

More rain

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The weather has been cool, well, for Texas its been cool. We’ve had rain, both yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday). Today was 0.63 inches. But just wait, tomorrow we are due for high 80’s, then Thursday back to 90’s.

The weather forecast says Thursday and Friday no rain. But tomorrow, the starting Saturday we are looking for scattered thunderstorms. So we are back to high mold counts, and water logged planters. Its been a weird time gardening. It has truly been feast and famine. We’re hot or raining. And the nights are down to low 70’s.

Welcome to Texas gardening. You never know what’s in store.

Rain

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Its been warm, in the 90’s. And yet today its been cooler, in the 80’s, and raining. We’ve had the kind of rain that if a sudden downpour. It gives like half an inch of rain in 20 minutes. Its nice, in part because it has cooled down to 77 as of now, 7pm. In addition to the half inch of rain at one short time period, we’ve had a couple of short sporadic rain falls, bringing us to a total so far today of 0.61 inches. Its only 7pm, so its possible we could get more rain tonight.

We do have a much larger chance of rain tomorrow. We actually have a chance of showers for the next week. We’ll see how much we actually get. It might be quite a bit, but who knows.

On a different note, the Pacific North West is in a heat wave. Hard as it is to believe today was supposed to be around 90. Tomorrow, Monday its expected to be 110 degrees in Seattle. And its supposed to be 90 on Tuesday.

This is a bit unusual. I’ve lived in that area and usually the hottest week is about the first week of August., usually Seafair weekend. This weekend is the last weekend of June. If this is their new hottest week, its a month ahead of schedule. Then again, the first week of August could still end up being hot, hotter than this. That just remains to be seen.

As for my garden, its doing okay. I finally pulled out my Swiss chard. Its grown far too large to handle. Its bitter, its a cool weather plant so I’m not sure why its been growing in the middle of 90 degree weather. So, I pulled it out. Ironically my peppers in pots are doing better than my pepper in the raised beds. I’ve lost my squash, yet my cucumbers are growing well. And my volunteer plants, seeds probably from last year, I think they are watermelon, maybe cantaloupe look like they are growing well. These plants have small fruits on them. We’ll see how they grow, and if they mature. My apple trees, in the ground actually look like they are doing well. They’ve grown taller, I’ve even seen flowers on them, and they are leafing out well. Even my new Meyer lemon is looking good.

Overall, the garden is doing okay.

UPDATE: per weather.com Seattle is 100 degrees at 6:20pm. That’s hot anywhere you are at.

Rain again

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I got up this morning to grey skies, 65 degrees, and a bit of thunder. I was able to get the dogs out for their potty break before the rain began. I also got to watch lightning strikes, not that faraway. In less than half an hour we got half an inch of rain.

Currently we have this large green mass of rain on the radar moving our way. There is a lot of yellow and red mixed into that green. As I sit here I can just hear the thunder rattling outside. My dogs are not happy.

UPDATE: Its now after 5pm, its 5:15pm by my clock, and we are just barely shy of 2 inches of rain. The weather station says 1.98 inches of rain at this time. This has been one slow moving rain system. Its been rain, rain, and more rain. Sometimes heavy, but much of it this light constant drizzle.

What scary is rain is in the forecast from now until next Wednesday, another week of rain. Yes, Texas pretty much always needs rain, and its nice that its been a light slow drizzle at least part of the time. But the fact is we’re getting to flooding in lots of places. The ground is saturated. There’s a lot of closed roads due to flooding. And I’m sure its going to get worse before it gets better.

UPDATE: its just about 5:45pm, and we’ve hit 2 inches of rain for the day. Is that the end of the rain for the day, I don’t know.

Not quite rainy week

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Texas weather is well, Texas weather. For the majority of this week they have forecast rain, at least somewhere. And then they change their mind. The good news is early this week, I think Sunday and Monday we did get rain. We got about one inch over the two days. But as of today, Thursday we haven’t had rain – at least not here at the house. But rain is in the forecast again.

Surprisingly, this weekend is Memorial Day weekend and we are not currently staring down at any major storms. This area often gets storms this weekend, and its nice that this weekend there are none in the forecast. That’s not to say we may not get rain, just not storms. We might get some rain Friday and Saturday, and a low possibility of morning rain on Monday.

Next week, the chance of rain goes up from Tuesday to Friday. Also our temperatures will only be in the mid 80’s (ONLY!). We’ve begin the slow climb to summer as our days will be in the mid 80’s and our night in the high 60’s (think 67-69). Yes this is cooler than summer in Texas. For this area of Texas summer temperatures are high 90’s to triple digits. So high 80’s is not our summer heat. Yup that’s Texas.

I’ll keep you posted on what we actually get.

Storms

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Central Texas is due for storms this week. Yesterday we had rain early in the morning, and had 0.42 inches of rain. Then it was cloudy and clearing skies the rest of the day.

Today we had cloudy skies, just light sprinkles. Then we suddenly got rain and wind. In about 45 minutes we got over 0.79 inches of rain. I can’t give you an exact amount as in the middle of the rain we got quite a lightning storm and power outages. We had about 4 power outages in a matter of 10 minutes. The power went out, then back on so the outages were quick. But the rain continued to fall and the weather station couldn’t keep up during the outages. So we got just over 0.79 inches, but I couldn’t give you an exact amount. But after a while it has stopped. But we will have flooding, my front walk area is flooded, but I’m sure it will drain quickly.

The storming is due to continue for the next week. We should get quite a bit of rain they say. Austin could get upwards of 7-10 inches. We’ll see how much we actually get. But we are expected to get rain for the next 7 days, until Tuesday May 25. Who knows, over that number of days we may actually get that much.

But as it stand right now, between yesterday and right now, and its not quite 3pm, we’ve already had an inch of rain.

So I will keep tabs on how much rain we get as best as I can.

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.

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.

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.

We survived

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The weather event that Texas went through the other week was one for the record books, in many ways. Did people die from this cold? Apparently yes. Not the best outcome. Why did people die? Well, from what I can tell it was a variety of reasons. For some it was literally the cold – they lost power, some for pretty much the entire week. Houses got down to the 30-40’s inside the house. Some had no water for days. The cold, no heat or power, no water, no way to safely warm themselves, no way to get out, and no way to get help – from what I can tell, those were reasons for deaths in this cold event. I’m sure there were other reasons too.

For those that live in cold climates, you may wonder why this was such a big deal. Basically it came down to preparedness. How do you prepare for something you don’t know? If you’ve never lived through an earthquake, all the information you can be told, all the videos you can watch don’t really prepare you for the actual reality. Also you may have expectations. If you think you can just call for help, how does that happen when cell towers are down? How do you charge your cell phone if you have no power? Most people never think about these things.

And when I say people, I’m not just talking about citizens. It applies to companies too. Disaster planning requires quite a bit of thought. If you have no water and you can’t get to a store, what do you do? You can’t use a hose as there’s no water. If you don’t keep water on hand, how do you get water? What do you drink?

I’m not talking about survivalist training, nor having a basement filled to the brim with items just for the end of the world. But most people seem to not understand, nor prepare at all for something to happen. Except things do happen. And no I don’t have any great suggestions. The information is told to people, its available online, there are a lot of ways to find it. But preparing take work, and not everyone can easily do that. Sometimes resources are just not there for people.

  • This is cold no matter where you are.
  • Yup, 7 inches of snow on my back deck.
  • Ice encased bushes.

I am sorry people died. I was stuck inside too. Alone. And my power went off and on too. So I had to make do too.

But back to the garden. Such was the snow and ice event in central Texas. Now we just wait and see what plants survive. The good news is it doesn’t really look like I lost a lot of them. Most of the succulents took this cold hard and they may not survive. And I think the tomatoes are dead. But surprisingly, a lot of plants seem to have survived. Now its just wait and see.