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

It has rained here for about the last eighteen hours straight. The current temperature is 55. I truly would LOVE to send you some of this. I'm not quite ready for fall yet...

(Although the bonus is that I found $1.37 in the pocket of my rain jacket this morning from last season )

103 was the maximum temperature yesterday. There's no scorchio in the forecast for the next eight days, and even a slim chance of some rain over the weekend... just as 100,000 people go to Zilker Park to watch Austin City Limits Festival, so it's bound to happen

46 here this morning when I left for work...

Our minimum temperature last night was 74. It's already started climbing.

There is hope for rain starting October 8th...


The Texas Rainaissance Festival begins. It managed to dodge the fires, barely.

We need to import the British rain dance. What they'll do is prepare a field, and in particular a strip of ground in the middle of the field. On the appointed day, two men wearing white coats walk out to the prepared strip and erect three sticks with two sticks lying across them at each end of the prepared strip. Then, eleven more men wearing white walk out and stand at various spots around the field. Then two more men wearing white and carrying flat sticks walk out and each one stands by the three sticks that were previously stuck in the ground. One of the men wearing the white coats hands a red ball to one of the eleven men, and when he's ready the man in the white coat says 'Play!'

And then it rains for five days.

Gorblimey, I almost forgot! Only 96 today, and you should have seen the sky - it had clouds in it! And not just wispy high ones, but big tall creamy ones

Rain! Actual water falling from the sky For all of about a minute, but pretty hard. Enough to make a few puddles. And we barely made it into the 90s. 91 was the maximum today.

There are forecast maximum temperatures in the 80s for next weekend

Rain again! Actual measurable (0.16") rain However, the latest drought monitor image shows almost 90% of Texas in the severest category of drought http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DM_state.htm?TX,S

I have heard reports from friends that parts of Houston was drenched, but we've received none down here by the bay.

There was a lot of green and yellow and red on the radar down your way around mid afternoon, as well as some out in the Hill Country. We had a good steady rain here for about 15 minutes.

They've revised today's maximum temperature down to 87 and increased the rain chance to 40%.

I'm not a religious or spiritual person, I don't believe that anything happens for a reason other than that's what local conditions brought about, and I don't acknowledge the hand of any higher being or universal conscience in any occurrence, no matter how coincidental... but you've got to wonder at the fact that the first time it rains for several months is on the first day of ACL Fest, the second time it rains is on the second day and it looks like it's going to rain on the third day too!

Boy did they get that one wrong! No rain and 95°. Hoo hah! Very humid.

Mind you, there is a lot of activity on the radar to the north west, and headed this way. If the storms hold together they'll be here some time after midnight I think. San Antonio's getting a pretty good soaking right now. Dallas too.

We got about .07 inches.

Looks like you got some in the small hours too - 0.41" according to the NWS. The storms that were headed this way last night fell apart before they got here.

We've got 96 forecast for Tuesday, then a cold front on Tuesday night which will give us a little respite with a few days of highs in the 80s forecast, but then it starts climbing into the low 90s again. Will this summer never end?

Yep, it was pouring down this morning. It woke me up as it was blowing from the North against my bedroom window. I'll be interested to see what our rain gauge indicates when I get home.

1.85"... It'll have to do because I don't see much chance of more than a sprinkle for the rest of the week.

That's pretty impressive When the next drought monitor image for Texas comes out (or rather, the next one after this weekend's rains - they seem to be a week or two behind) I'll be very interested to see if the percentage of exceptional drought has gone down, where, and by how much. The last one was pushing 90% for the entire state, and the mid-range forecast wasn't presenting much hope.

In the meantime, another 95° day today. Still too damn hot.

When it was in the 100s I was complaining that it wasn't in the 90s. Now that is, I wish it was in the 80s. When it gets down to 80s I'll be complaining that it isn't in the pleasant and balmy 70s, and once it goes below 70 I'll no doubt be complaining about this bloody cold weather and isn't it about time it was summer again?