Category Archives: Texana

Dodging rain – as usual

Posted on July 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Dodging rain – as usual

We were going to take the newish Honda CRV and drive out to the Hill Country near Fredericksburg to see if any summer peaches are left for sale. But the radar shows big green blobs of rain headed that way from west of San Antone. Guess we’ll try Lake Travis, instead. Looks like the rain won’t get there for hours yet. Reprieve due this week, according to some forecasters, with sun and highs in the mid-90s. I’d take highs in the mid-100s, at this point, if it meant the rain would stop for a few days.

Comments Off on Dodging rain – as usual

Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged , , ,

Saturated ground

Posted on July 27, 2007 | Comments Off on Saturated ground

Area creeks and streams aren’t the only things running fast and high these days. So’s the upper forty at the rancho, in the sense that the ground is thoroughly saturated. So when it rains hard for an hour or two like it did yesterday morning (bringing our rain total for the week to six inches) and is expected to do again today, it runs off quickly. In fact, it turns into a waterfall on the stone steps leading down to the house, gradually pooling on the patio, rising and threatening to come inside. What we need is a few days of sun for the ground to dry out. We may get it by Monday. But first we have to make it through the weekend.

Comments Off on Saturated ground

Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged ,

The season of the seal

Posted on July 26, 2007 | Comments Off on The season of the seal

Texas climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says the state is almost drought free for the first time in a decade. How wet is it? Well, nobody’s talking about the dog days of summer, anymore, now that Austin, alone, has set records for cool temperatures in all of July. More like, the season of the seal.

Comments Off on The season of the seal

Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged , ,

Tropical storms please stay away

Posted on July 23, 2007 | Comments Off on Tropical storms please stay away

This is why Central Texans are praying the hurricane season confines itself to the Atlantic this year:

"’Everything is saturated. The rivers are at capacity, the lakes are up to capacity — any tropical system that moves into Texas is going to create a lot of problems,’ said Joe Arelleno, director of the Austin-San Antonio forecast office of the National Weather Service."

Meanwhile, we got another series of storms today. The high pressure dome we are used to sweating under in the summer decided to move to the northwest of us this year, and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico is flowing in unimpeded. 

Comments Off on Tropical storms please stay away

Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged , , ,

Border fence

Posted on July 19, 2007 | Comments Off on Border fence

I’ll believe this when it happens:

"Local officials said recently they had been told the Homeland Security department plans to have 153 miles of wall in place in Texas by the end of 2008. While locals may be consulted on the type of fence constructed, they will not have veto power over whether the wall will be built, [director Michael] Chertoff said. ‘Because the fence is not only to protect the border communities, it’s to protect the country,’ he said."

More here. At this rate, it’ll be mid-century before they close the 2,000 mile southern border, two-thirds of it in Texas. Meanwhile, the tunneling has already begun.

Comments Off on Border fence

Posted in South of the Border, Texana, The War

Tagged , ,

Another flood gate closed

Posted on July 18, 2007 | Comments Off on Another flood gate closed

Just one flood gate remains open on Mansfield Dam at Lake Travis and the sloop is accessible again:

"Late this afternoon, the elevation of Lake Travis was at 683.6 feet above mean sea level (msl) — nearly 18 feet lower than its recent peak elevation July 6. However, the lake — created to hold floodwaters — still remains in its flood pool; Lake Travis is at full elevation at 681 feet msl."

Went out to check the boat this morning, after finishing mowing the lawn. Cabin has no mildew and the outboard started on the first pull. Then, coming home, another thunderstorm passed over with blinding rain. Traffic slowed, fortunately, because the car ahead braked suddenly and I ran into it. My fault, of course, as it always is when you rearend someone. Fortunately no one was hurt, but I’m now looking at expensive bodywork. I do wish all this rain would go the hell away. The aquifers are full, the ground is saturated. We don’t need any more.

Comments Off on Another flood gate closed

Posted in Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged , ,

Crickets

Posted on July 18, 2007 | Comments Off on Crickets

I thought I was fed up with all the damn mosquitoes this wettest of recent Texas years has spawned. Then I began to think the physiological chirping crickets of my tinnitus were tuning up for barbershop harmonies. Until my old bud at KVUE, Shelton Green, wrote this piece on the latest "benefit" of all the rain: the real crickets are back, several months early. Just what we needed. What a weird year.

Comments Off on Crickets

Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

Tagged ,