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

With lots and lots of air conditioning and not going out of a building except to wait for a bus There are plenty of Texans who don't even experience that much summer temperature because they go straight from an air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car! And back again.

Preferably, from their A/C'd house, to their attached garage, to their car, to the parking garage, to their office.

I'm pretty sure modern air conditioning was invented in Houston.

We've actually got some *below* average temperatures (low 90s) forecast for the middle of the week That's a rarity these days, especially during the summer.

Aaaahh...

I was just able to take my daily walk around the ponds for the first time in over a month without ending up covered in sweat. I took advantage of a break in the showers. The showers and cloud cover has dropped the temps significantly this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18770815

But there's no global warming.

We had our first decent thunderstorm for a while last night. More than 3/4" of rain and plenty of thunder and lightning. It also dropped the temps nicely, and walking out of the door this morning to catch my bus was really quite

There have been showers all over the radar today but none of them have emptied a single raindrop on Austin yet. Highest temperature so far today - 89F, but it's really humid.

Another half inch of rain last night. I was at Red's Porch, which has an open upstairs bar with a fantastic view looking west over the Hill Country (and a few business estates plus Barton Creek Mall, unfortunately), and we could see the storm approaching from the north with plenty of impressive lightning. Which was enough for the proprietors to order everyone downstairs, dammit. It would have been pretty to stay up there and watch it pass by but, y'know, lawyers and all that

Maybe they should invest in some steel mesh that could be rolled down and turn the porch into a Faraday cage so we could stay up there

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro, magnifico-o-o-o-o

Sorry, couldn't resist

( I was thinking of this famous wizard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw )

Mummy, those people frighten me

Looks like Houston's getting a pretty good soaking this morning.

Yerp. I'm going to have to be careful making my lunch plans. There are many roads around the NASA area that are prone to flooding. I should probably stick close to Clear Lake where the drainage is better. I'm in the Outback today but even it can't ford some of the intersections around here when it rains. Especially when some in a jacked up SUV plows through throwing a wake.

Seriously, they should make a state law declaring all flooded roads No Wake Zones.

A storm came through last night just as I was thinking about going to bed and left 1.26" of rain behind it in a very short time - just over an inch of that was between midnight and 1am! We almost went below 70F overnight and I've opened the windows front and back this morning to get some fresh air in the apartment. It's a beautiful morning

Nearly three inches of rain this evening, and I think I got caught in most of it

Today will be our 9th straight day of measurable rain.

I'm so relieved this summer hasn't been a repeat - or even close to - last summer. We'll need a lot more rain though, I think. When I flew back from CA we came in over the lakes upstream of Austin and there's still a significant ring of brown around most of them - land that should be underwater.

I haven't had to turn the a/c on again this morning, and we actually did drop below 70 last night - 68° That didn't happen for months on end last year.

Houston area lakes are full again. I saw a comparison of one on the news this weekend. The pick from last year shows a homeowner mowing "the lake". He had about a 4 foot bulkhead and the grass was growing high 30-40 foot away from that. This year shows his yard flooded.

MUSHROOMS... MUSHROOMS...

Lots of them. I probably saw 5-10 varieties on my walk this morning.

I've just read a very interesting statistic on the local weather page. Today last year was Austin's 33rd day of scorchio. The count so far this year? Eight And today we only just made it to 90, but it is very humid - 90% at 8am, down to 58% at 4pm, and now back above 60% but only 86°. I'll take that over scorchio. Which we might see again by early next week - a scorchio forecast for next Monday.