And Then the Rains Came...

Today, we had some wild weather. This is normally a rainy season, but thunderstorms are not common. There is a low preasure system coming in very slowly from the west and it has caused significant instability in the atmosphere. This low preasure system has dropped two feet of snow on Colorado. As a result of this system, warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico has been pulled in over central Texas where it is colliding with the cold air rotating around the low. This caused severe thunderstorms with very strong winds and numerous small tornados.

I just went out and read the rain gauge. It looks like we got about three-quarters of an inch of rain. Some areas to the north of us got up to two inches, according to the weather report.

The forecasters say that this system should move out before morning. But yesterday, they said that it would be gone by this evening. Guess what? It is still here! I do not hold out a lot of hope for this system to be gone by morning.

I know, we need the rain. But we need them a little at a time, over a period of weeks. Not all at once, in just a few hours. The gentle rain will soak into the ground, where it will nurish the roots of plants. The heavy downpours will saturate the top one half inch to one inch and the rest will run off, taking valuable topsoil with it and will cause flash flooding. If the rain runs off, it does little to aleviate the drought.