Rain

By my last check of the rain gauge last night, we had 3.35 inches of rain. This morning we had clocked an additional 0.83. So our total for last night is over 4 inches of rain.

Today, we haven’t had any rain. Right now, in the early evening, the sky outside is blue and lovely. Tonight we are not due for rain, though that is always subject to change. But tomorrow we have about a 40% chance of rain. Friday and Saturday we have 84 and 90 percent chance of rain. So we will have wet days ahead. By Sunday the chance of rain will fall to about 25%.

The nice thing of course with this chance of rain, is that our temperatures will fall also. Friday our high will be just below 80, with the lows in the mid 60’s. Hopefully this means we have begun the cooler days and nights of Autumn.

And with that cool down we begin the next growing season. Welcome to the growing reality of Central Texas.

Weather?

Okay, this is a slightly different posting. I’m actually posting from an airport, DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) to be precise. I’m on my way to CA for a few days, not exactly a fun trip, but a necessary trip.

But I’m posting this for a reason. For some reason my flight has been delayed, for 2 hours. This delay has meant I will miss my connecting flight. I’ve had to rebook the various legs to get me to CA. Why the delay? I have no clue. But I do know that when I got to the airport a number of flights were listed as delayed, some as long as 4 hours.

While on the short jaunt to DFW from Austin, I listened to others complaining. One guy mentioned his wife as on a flight due to leave at 8AM. He said it actually left at 1:45pm, over 5 hours late. Another guy mentioned that someone he knew was on a flight that had to be rerouted to Oklahoma City for refueling. It seemed that wherever they were going they couldn’t land and had to circle. They circled so long they had to reroute in order to refuel.

As I sat in a restaurant grabbing a bite to eat, the guy next to me said he had been on a flight. They had canceled the flight from Key West to wherever, possibly DFW. That was on Saturday, due to a storm coming in. They didn’t give him any sort of hotel nor food vouchers. He was able to beg a room from someone. It is now Monday and he still hasn’t finished his flight home. He’s hoping his 8pm flight will still occur and he will get home.

Is this all weather related? I don’t know. I do know that I wanted earlier flights in order to minimize the chance of storms here in the DFW area. And of course with the rain we had in Austin, I can watch storm clouds building over DFW. Summer storms can happen in this area, so it’s something I do think about.

Will I make it out as planned. I hope so. But what I do know is that the weather is affecting flights. Its affecting far more than just gardens.

Even though the other day my garden got 0.67 inches, the news said some areas got up to 2.5 inches of rain. And yes that did include some thunder and thunderstorms. That wasn’t just some little storm leaving sprinkles in its wake. So before you think weather is just about your garden, it can affect a lot more – flights, roads, flooding, landslides, and so much more.

Beware weather changes.

Not quite rainy week

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 ahead

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.