h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rain? Whassat?

It's been so dry here I had to break down and actually wash my car. What's up with that?

*Faints* ::THUD::

We've had rain, rain and more rain. Forecast for the coming week: rain. We've really needed it though.

The temperature didn't get any lower than 78/25.6 last night. Even now, at 11.10pm, it's 84/28.9 and the humidity is making it feel more like 93/33.9

At 8am this morning the temperature was 80F/26.7F. An hour later it had dropped more than 10°F, and after another hour we'd had almost half an inch of rain

This really is turning out to be something of a wet June. So far today we've had almost an inch of rain, and .78" of that fell between noon and 1pm. We've got an 80% chance of further rain tonight and tomorrow, then 50% on Wednesday. There's a lot of rain on the radar right now.

It's raining again! And I ws just about to walk down to the diner and get me some breakfast

I can't help but wonder how you're doing as I wake up to the radio news reporting "Biblical rain" in central Texas. "Marble Falls' dam has all 10 flood gates open, the first time they've ever opened all ten...", "17 inches of rain in 6 hours in Marble Falls and the rain is still falling." They mentioned eminent flooding of houses at Lake Travis and other lakes in the Austin area.

We haven't had any of that rain yet but it looks like it's heading this way. It also looks like it's doing its usual trick of dissipating as it gets to within striking distance. We only have a 60% chance of rain in the forecast. I haven't heard about the dams higher up the Colorado River, but they're opening flood gates on the dams closest to Austin and banning all watercraft activity from the Lower Colorado lakes. There are flash flood warnings and watches in this area and flood warnings out in the Hill Country.

Guess I'd better try and get to the supermarket before it moves into Austin.

http://www.news8austin.com/Content/Weather/SatelliteRadar/Doppler/CenTex/Current/?SatRadImage=MS_TWEAN_RAD_CTTX_Loop
http://weather.keyetv.com/US/TX/Austin.html

In case you want to track it yourself.

Well, it looks like I was right on the money - the rain is fizzling out altogether before it gets anywhere near Austin.

"Travel from Austin north or into the Hill Country is highly discouraged today because of flooding rains that moved into Central Texas late last night and continued into this morning. Nearly 20 inches of rain was measured at an LCRA rain gauge 6 miles east-northeast of Marble Falls. Backbone Creek near Marble Falls has measured 12.88 inches of rain and 12.32 inches of rain measured at the LCRA rain gauge 6 miles south-southeast of Burnet. Bertram has measured 9.88 inches of rain during the last 24 hours."

Good grief!

I hope you have a boat, Gosho.

I don't, and I've just heard that there could be a further 10-15" of rain over the next 36 hours. It would take an awful lot of rain to flood Fort Gosho, I think. I'm a long way from the Colorado River or even any local creeks. The back of my apartment is raised above the lawn by two to three feet, and I've only ever seen that flood once in the last two and a half years - a few months ago when we had two inches of rain. I think I recorded here in fact. The front is a bit of a worry though, but it would have to rain like it did out in the Hill Country last night for the water to get high enough to come in under the door. Probably.

Update:
"Marble Falls received 19.06 inches of rainfall since early this morning, Burnet reported 13.81", while Spicewood tallied 10.56".

Other rainfall amounts:

Kingsland 10.31, Bertram 9.98", Lake LBJ 8.84, Llano 8.63, Mason 6.05, Leander 3.20."

Austin, meanwhile, hasn't seen a drop of rain for almost 24 hours, but I notice that storms are starting to light up the radar to the east of I-35 and up towards Waco.

And those storms have developed into a very nice line... which is moving away from Austin.

This morning there is a group of storms to the south west heading this way and a group of storms to the north west, also heading this way. I believe it was two storms merging (and then standing still) that caused the staggering rain totals at Marble Falls yesterday

There's only a 20% chance of small scattered showers here on the Northern Texas Gulf coast. So, of course, I'm riding the motorcycle.

It's just started raining and it looks like I'm going to have a very wet journey to work

The Caney River which runs north/south through town is expected to crest at 28+ feet and stay that way through at least Thursday. More rain is expected today & tomorrow. The highway to the west of town is closed. Some of the roads in town are closed. The old highway north of town is closed. Reports say this is worse than it was in '86 which means we'll probably be without drinkable tap water, a lot of the town will be flooded and where we are in the west side will be cut off from the east side.

Them Easters - bein' cut off from them's a blessin' not a curse

No rain here despite the predictions.