Here comes the RAIN !!!

[Uncle Doug]

The rain started here again about 7pm last night. Real heavy at first. I guess over an inch before we turned in. Off and on through out the night. Will have to check the rain gauge when its get light out.

I did get the front yard mowed before last nights rain. The back out to the barn was still very wet from the weekend rains. The gardens are very soggy but some things are growing well. The green beans are growing like crazy with beans every where. I had tried to stay out of the garden as the soil was so soft, even with rubber boots it was a pain to check on everything. The purple hulls are also doing good. This is our first time to try them. The tomotto plants looked bad the first part of the week after the first flood. Some wilted down real bad but now seem to be making a comeback. The guy at church said to put hay around the base to keep to roots from baking in the heat.

The corn that was planted early is over 2 foot tall and starting to make ears. After each flood I had to stand back up a few of them, the soil was so soft I could push them back in about an inch to stand them back up. None seemed to have died off yet. The late corn seems to be doing ok but is very wet back there. It is only a foot tall and not so top heavy yet. Everything else has been slow to take off due to the cool weather this spring.

Back to work tomorrow for a short week then off for 12 days. I work a 4x4 shift so I took 4 days vacation for the local livestock show end of next week. Out Young Farmer group helps out with every thing then puts on a huge BBQ for the livestock auction. The rain needs to quit ASAP or we will be in for a wet 4 day show. It always makes things worse when you spend more time pulling folks out of the mud then doing what you are there for.

 

[EddieWalker]

We ended up with .18 of an inch yesterday. With all the warnings of severe weather and tornado warnings in the counties East of us, I was really expecting something to happen here. We don't need it right now, both my ponds are still overflowing and anything more just adds to the overflow.

Today they have us at 80% chance for rain with some storms being heavy, but nothing severe in the forecast. We'll see. I have both inside and outside projects to do on the house I'm working on, so it's not a big deal either way.

Eddie

 

[texbaylea]

Started raining here about 6am and is continuing with the rate at nearly 2.5 in/hr now. Had 4in. in the guage at 8am. Lots of surface water right now but it soaks in quickly in our sandy soil.

Vernon

 

[The Dougster]

I live a few miles North of Austin and I had 4 1/2-inches in the rain gauge late in the day... (Monday 28th)... according to a neighbor, we only got about 2 1/2-inches at the ranch in Lampasas County.... from news reports, parts of Lampasas had gotten as much as 6-8-inches ... Sure hope my new stock tanks caught some water...

 

[texbaylea]

Rain stopped here about 10:30. The peak rainfall rate was over 3 in/hr and totaled more than 7.5 in. We have creek crossings either side of us and I went out to look and both are under at least 2 ft of water, running fast. We are not going anywhere for an hour or two.

I will have to get out later and rework our driveway. It is not paved and has been potholed in a few places from runoff from the top of our land. One of the creeks is on our west side boundary so I will take the tractor down there later to see what it has done to the fence.

AS luck would have it, I grabbed the camera to find the batteries down. As soon as they recharge I will see what pictures I can get.

Vernon

 

[Uncle Doug]

The rain gauge says we got 2 1/2 inches over night. Not as much water standing as before but the hard rains stopped early last night. That is a little over 13 inches for the past 10 days.

I was out on my afternoon walk which I try to do on my days off and ran into a couple of guys from the county trying to clear culverts. I let them know what I thought some of the issues were. I did get the name and number of the road foreman. They said he has got quite a few calls over the past few days.
One more call won't hurt.

 

[TigerfaninAR]

Absolutely flooded here. We got four inches of rain between 4am and 7:30am. Thank goodness we haven't gotten anymore today, but suppose to rain everyday through Saturday.

 

[Bird]

The rain gauge says we got 2 1/2 inches over night. Not as much water standing as before but the hard rains stopped early last night. That is a little over 13 inches for the past 10 days.

I was out on my afternoon walk which I try to do on my days off and ran into a couple of guys from the county trying to clear culverts. I let them know what I thought some of the issues were. I did get the name and number of the road foreman. They said he has got quite a few calls over the past few days.
One more call won't hurt.

So you've gotten over 13" in the last 10 days and I've gotten less than 8.5" this year! Only .54" or .55" this past week.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Oh my gosh last night and today another 4 1/2 inches, there was flooding allover, I had to divert to get home. Our road had fast flowing water on it in 4 or 5 places, haven't seen that since 1994.

The freeway going south was a disaster, traffic backed up for miles and miles and miles, don't know where the problem or problems were, bet it was like that all 25 or so miles to Houston.

 

[weldingisfun]

1.5 inches over the last two days. I swear there is a large glass dome over my place. When I look at the doppler radar, the rains seem to go completely around us.

 

[EddieWalker]

We received .16 of an inch from yesterdays storms. It stayed south of Interstate 20 for the most part and we just received what was on the fringe of it. I was working on a house in Tyler, which is about ten miles South of I-20, and we had over half an inch of rain there. It was slow and steady.

More rain predicted for today, but again, it's supposed to be isolated. Kind of hit or miss type of weather. I'm hoping for a miss as I want my land to dry out so I can move some dirt!!! They say that if you get hit, you could get as much as 2 inches from todays storms. It's a wait and see type of thing.

Eddie

 

[jinman]

The drought continues at my place. We haven't had any rain in about 2 weeks and got none of the rain that has been happening between DFW area and Houston. All we've had is dry, hot, gusty winds up until yesterday when it did cool off some. Yesterday, I did the layout for 7 postholes for my retainer wall on my new garden spot. We've had about 2-1/2" of rain in the last month, but none recently. The area where I'm digging is red clay, so water soaks into that very slowly anyhow.

I'm using a 12" auger with good cutting tips. As I sat the auger down, it penetrated the first 3" of clay and then started peeling little clay chips about 1-2" long by 1" wide and very thin. They looked like wood chips or shavings from a Forstner bit. I couldn't even perceive the auger going down. I tried some water in the hole and let it sit for an hour. All I got was a slick slurry of clay that I ended up having all over my shoes. If the clay had been slightly moist, it might have helped, but moisture penetration to that depth would take several days. The chips soon turned to little pea-size pebbles of clay. Progress was slow, but I realized I was making progress, so I continued. After 1/2 hour of augering, the bit was down to about 2' deep when I hit a layer of soft limestone. The bit started bouncing and chips of limestone came up about the size of a pecan. I rocked the auger from side-to-side and it continued down. After 45 minutes, of continual drilling and 1 hour of soaking time with the water, I had my first 3-1/2' post hole with straight polished sides. Repeat this process for two more holes (minus the water), and I was done for the day. It took me all afternoon to dig 3 stinkin' post holes. I guess I should be happy I got something accomplished. I'm retired, so I have lots of time.

 

[EddieWalker]

Jim,

I had to check the time of your post. Right now, at 5:45 pm, it looks like a VERY SEVERE storm is over your area and staying above Denton and Plano, then working its way along I 30 and Hwy 80. I'm just below it, but I can see the clouds and lightning. We're still dry, but the forecast jumped from 20% chance of rain tonight up to 70% in the last hour. That frontal line is very intimidating!!!!!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[jinman]

Jim,

I had to check the time of your post. Right now, at 5:45 pm, it looks like a VERY SEVERE storm is over your area and staying above Denton and Plano, then working its way along I 30 and Hwy 80. I'm just below it, but I can see the clouds and lightning. We're still dry, but the forecast jumped from 20% chance of rain tonight up to 70% in the last hour. That frontal line is very intimidating!!!!!!!!!!

Eddie

Eddie, we have a nice, steady shower so far with about 1/2" and it seems to be continuing. I got 5 complete postholes finished and 1/3 of another one before the lightning made me quit. Progress is slow. . . just like the rain.

BTW: Saint Jo and Muenster got pounded by rain. Just a few miles makes a huge difference with this storm. It has isolated cells with very heavy downpours.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm looking at Live Dopler with our local news channel, and it's showing your area in all sorts of colors. Green is a nice steady rain, yellow is heavy rain, orange is usually a severe storm and then the shades of red to magenta and purple are extreme weather. You are in a mixture of all the reds from what I can tell. The front line is also very dark and in color on the Dopler image. If it drops ten miles, we're in it. Right now, it's just sliding by us like a very venomous snake!!!!!

I want to go hook up my new drag and smooth out some dirt until it gets dark out, but the lightning scares me. We have several deaths in our county every year from lightning strikes. It's a fairly common way to die.

Eddie

 

[Bird]

Eddie, I use the NWS site the most and it also includes the color blue, which is what we have right now just about a mile south of the Denton city limits; i.e., very light rain finally. I mowed and spread a little Scotts turf builder today when they changed the forecast from a 70% chance to a 90% chance, then they changed it to 100% chance and now 50% for tonight. I'm still hoping, but I may have to water that fertilizer tomorrow after all.

 

[jinman]

Well, we got 3" more overnight (3-1/2" total so far). It started about 1:20 am and continued until 5:30 am with several heavy showers. The first heavy rain that moved through our area had pea to dime-size hail that lasted for about 2 or 3 minutes on the front of the storm. It's not light enough to see if I still have a garden, but I'm sure I will have some erosion and damage due to the way the rain came down. I'm also pretty darn sure that Bird won't have to be watering in his fertilizer today. I have posts sitting in 5 of my post holes, so I don't have to worry about having them filled with water and mud.

Those poor folks in Gainesville, Saint Jo, and Muenster must be wondering what hit them. (Southern OK too!) The Gainesville storm reminds me of back in the early 70s (I believe) when they had a huge flood in Gainesville and the Frank Buck Zoo had several drowned animals. I was in the US Navy then and don't have all the details, but I believe the Pecan Creek improvements were due to that flood. I heard on the news last night that Pecan Creek was out of its banks, so I hope the zoo is safe too.

Edit: I just checked the NWS site for storm rainfall totals. Just north of Saint Jo and Muenster, the map shows 15 in. of rain. I guess Tallyho8's post about what would happen with 12" of rain is timely to their situation. All we have to do is watch the local news to see what is happening: Red Cross shelters full and flooded highways are two things that come to mind.

 

[EddieWalker]

15 inches of rain is just beyond my comprehension. We're muddy here, but the last two days have only left half an inch in my rain gauge. It's more annoying then anything else. We're above normal in our rain for the year as of right now.

The radar shows a small front in the Dallas area right now, and heading East. I'm supposed to be doing some trim work and making a few new drawers for a client today, but I need to set up shop in their courtyard. The rains have been putting this off all week, and now it looks like another day of rain.

Eddie

 

[Bird]

I'm also pretty darn sure that Bird won't have to be watering in his fertilizer today.

Yep, along about dark last night, it looked like I had about a half inch in my rain gauge, but I didn't go out and empty it, so at 7 a.m. this morning, I had a grand total of 1.90" in my gauge from the 2 days.

I just looked at the NWS hour by hour amounts and it shows the Denton Airport only got 1.52", while Ardmore, OK, had 4.52", and Gainesville had 7.39". And the Dallas Morning News today says as much as 10" fell west of Sherman.

Like Eddie said, 10 to 15 inches would just be mind boggling. Down in Navarro County, on 1/29/99, I got 4.08" and I think that's the biggest rain I ever had from one storm at my home.

Ooops, that 4.08" wasn't the biggest because on 12/16/01, I recorded 6.10" in Navarro County.

 

[texbaylea]

For a mind boggling rain try 43 in. July 25-26 1979 at Alvin Tx. This was on the Dickinson Bayou watershed and we ended up with over 3 feet of water in our house on the Bayou in Dickinson. I had built that house 1.5 ft over the flood level from Hurricane Carla which was the worst until Claudette. Claudette was only a category 1 but it stalled out. A large part of Galveston County was flooded.

Vernon