That’s the way Texas droughts usually end, with floods. And with 4.5 inches of rain yesterday, we’re certainly on the way to flooding. Because more is expected today. TV news videos of a roaring Shoal Creek out of its banks reminds of the 1981 flood. Four and a half inches is 22 percent of the average year’s total. In just one day. When it’s flooding down in Texas…all the telephone lines are down. Thank goodness for WiFi.
UPDATE: More didn’t materialize and we stayed at 4.5 inches.
UPDATE: Well, it looked bad here on radar, but it was moving fast. We got a nice soaking of two-and-a-half inches at the rancho. But other than some minor street flooding elsewhere in the city, there was no frog-strangler to disrupt anything. And now, at 5:20 p.m., it hasn’t rained at all for several hours.
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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Texas drought, Texas floods
The strange thing is that TS Hermine, which was forecast to be no more than a depression by the time it swept through Austin was, instead, still a storm. Consequently, we got a lot of rain, and 40 mph winds, and some area creeks are out of their banks, some trees are down and some places are flooded.
More than seven inches of rain at the rancho, so far, with ponding in the back forty, and some threat to the interior of the house which has been overcome with a makeshift dam and towels to soak up what got through. KVUE’s Mark Murray forecasts that Hermine-the-depression will be well north of us by sunrise, with only lingering showers to spoil Mr. B.’s morning recess at school. So he won”t be happy.
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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Austin, KVUE, Mark Murray, Texas floods, Texas Hill Country, Tropical Storm Hermine
Wind’s really picking up at the rancho, gusting to twenty-five thirty-five out of the southeast whence normally cometh our rain-making Gulf moisture. Indeed, the forecast is for thunderstorms overnight. LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose thinks we may get some real rain over the next three days, possibly the most we’ve had since mid-November.
In fact, Rose, noticing that the southern Jet Stream is becoming more active (and thus capable of guiding Pacific storm fronts our way), is thinking something I was wondering about the other day: that the 2008 drought might just finally get busted later this month into March. If so, it would be by a flood, of course. Floods are the way droughts break hereabouts. But we’ll take it.
UPDATE: By 9 a.m. Monday, according to LCRA’s hydrologic system of rain gauges, one-half to three-quarters of an inch of rain seems to be the norm over the area since midnight. Nice to see water ponding in the gutters again.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged 2008 drought, LCRA's meteorologist Bob Rose, Souther Jet Stream, Texas floods
Parts of the Hill Country around Fredericksburg (now at 10 inches) and Johnson City are soaked, after waves of rain in the past 24 hours, especially where the Pedernales River is out of its banks. The death toll hasn’t risen much since this morning, so people must be heeding the weather service slogan regarding low-water crossings: "Turn around, don’t drown." Lake Travis has risen two feet since Monday, mainly since Thursday. But LCRA expects it to rise another 5 to 6 feet over the weekend, which would be at or just below its flood pool elevation. And that’s just from what’s already fallen, with more expected.
The lake might flood by Memorial Day, or LCRA open the flood gates and pass the water downstream through Austin. Travis probably will be closed to boating, due to the debris and the high bacteria count, as most of the water is coming from the Pedernales and there’s a lot of cows and sheep out there. The rancho has picked up only a bit more than 1.5 inches. But the radar is clear, for now, with most of the rain parked well to the north. KVET/KASE meteorologist Troy Kimmel says we could get up to 10 inches more by Monday, primarily south of Austin, as a series of lows combine with a stationary front to our north to fetch moisture in from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, and trigger more rain.
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Posted in Weather/Climate
Tagged Austin, Hill Country, Texas floods, Troy Kimmel
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