C/S TX Weather: Seasonal with some rains

[Radiogirltx]

The rain has been great this weekend, but it's not near what we need to bring us out of the drought. What's the word on Jova and Irwin In EPAC? Could they bring us moisture, or will the mountains ring them dry? Also noticed an Invest west of CenAmerica, but haven't looked at the track models.

[Tsquare]

Final tally in rural area outside of Georgetown for the weekend: 1.37 inches. Beautiful rain!

[somethingfunny]

Well, it's a little bit better:

[vbhoutex]

Weirdly, it got worse in our area even though we got some good rains. The entire SE TX area is now in Exceptional. I guess it is Kelly's area catching up with us. Really sad when 4+" of rain doesn't take you out of exceptional drought conditions. With more fronts coming down now we can at least hope for some enhanced chances for rain.

[Rgv20]

A review of the 2011 Hurricane season impacts for the Rio Grande Valley area, courtesy of the NWS in Brownsville.

CLIMATOLOGY...THE 2011 HURRICANE SEASON LARGELY PASSED THE VALLEY
BY...WITH OUTER BANDS FROM ARLENE /JUNE 30/...AND A FIZZLING DON
/JULY 29/...THE CLOSEST IMPACTS. SEPTEMBER`S LEE AND NATE BROUGHT
HOT DRY SURGES AND ENSURED RECORD TO NEAR RECORD WATER YEAR
(OCTOBER TO SEPTEMBER) DROUGHT. THE MID WEEK COLD FRONT WILL
LIKELY BE THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR ANY SIGNIFICANT
TROPICAL CYCLONES FOR THE VALLEY IN 2011. ALREADY FIGHTING WIND
SHEAR...SUCH FRONTS TEND TO KNOCK SEVERAL DEGREES OFF THE SLOWLY
COOLING WESTERN GULF AND DEEP DRY AIR DOMINATING TEXAS WILL MAKE
IT DIFFICULT TO STEER ANY SYSTEMS THIS FAR WEST. LA NINA`S AUTUMN
DRYNESS MAY BE GETTING UNDERWAY THIS WEEK.

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=BRO&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

[Ptarmigan]

Historic drought killing trees across Texas, changing landscape for years to come
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

The drought has more impact than Ike or any hurricane. If the drought continues, water will be scarce and Texas's economy could shrink.

[somethingfunny]

Another week, another Drought Monitor update:



Some slight improvement in DFW, and some slight exacerbation in extreme northeast Texas, those are the only changes I can spot.

Well, it's a little bit better:

[somethingfunny]

We got clobbered by that storm Saturday night.

[southerngale]

Wow, sf... look at all that hail!

[somethingfunny]

We sure are getting a lot of rain up here in Dallas...

Mesquite Metro Airport
Lat: 32.75 Lon: -96.53 Elev: 446
Last Update on Oct 27, 4:55 pm CDT

Overcast

55 °F
(13 °C)
Humidity: 72 %
Wind Speed: N 12 MPH
Barometer: 30.00"
Dewpoint: 46 °F (8 °C)
Wind Chill: 52 °F (11 °C)

Let me dig out my waterproof boots and put on two pairs of socks before I go to work now.

[Shoshana]

No rain here since that rain on Oct 9.

I read a news report earlier this week where Bob Rose was quoted and it sounded pretty scary. It said this is the worst drought since 1550 and I can't find the article now. I know it said 1550 because it stopped me in my tracks and I reread it. I'll keep looking.

ahhh


Experts warn lawmakers drought could worsen

"We're currently experiencing probably the worst short term drought in Texas history and conditions don't look like they're going to be changing anytime soon," Bob Rose with the Lower Colorado River Authority said. "Going back to 1550, we could only find one other year that had drought conditions close to as bad as what we saw this past summer in Texas."

The sobering statistics come just 2 months after wildfires ripped through the Central Texas region, destroying more than 1,600 homes in Bastrop County alone.

State drought experts told lawmakers the next year or two could be even worse.

(that's just a snippet of the article)

and from http://texasclimatenews.org/wp/?p=3355

There was only one other year in almost five centuries when Texas’ summer drought was as severe as it was in 2011, federal climate experts have concluded.

Instrumental weather records used to measure drought severity don’t go back much before the 20th century. (In Texas, they date to 1895.)

To establish a longer-range record, scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have analyzed tree-ring data and calculated how drought conditions dating back hundreds of years (to 1550 in Texas) ranked on the standard Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI).

Positive numbers on the PDSI represent wet conditions and negative numbers indicate dry conditions. The more severe a drought is, the lower its PDSI number.

Texas’ average PDSI this past summer (June through August) was -5.37 – the lowest, indicating the most severe drought conditions, since the start of the instrumental record in 1895.

And according to the federal government’s National Climatic Data Center, there was apparently only one other year during the last 461 years when Texas had a drought so severe.

Going back to 1550, the tree-ring reconstructions reveal that only in 1789 was Texas’ PDSI number so low, the center reported recently. (For our readers who don’t readily recall key historical dates, 1789 was the year when George Washington was inaugurated as the United States’ first president and also when the French Revolution started.) Here’s part of the National Climatic Data Center’s report:

The tree-ring record can put the droughts of the last century across Texas, including 2011, into a much longer perspective. The frequency of severe one-year statewide droughts appears not to have significantly changed between the “paleo” period (1550-1894) and the instrumental period (after 1895). Both the instrumental and reconstructed PDSI records indicate that “severe” or “extreme” statewide summer drought (PDSI below -3) occurred in about 1 in 15 years. “Extreme” statewide summer droughts (PDSI below -4) such as 2011 and 1956 are seen in about 1 in 40 years in both the instrumental and reconstructed records.

So how does the 2011 summer PDSI (-5.37) compare to the worst one-year paleo-droughts? We first need to consider that the tree rings are imperfect recorders of past drought, and so the reconstructed values have confidence intervals (or “error bands”) associated with them. When this error band is taken into account, there is only one value in the paleo record, 1789 (-5.14), that can be said to be equivalent to the 2011 observed value. Thus, 2011 appears to be unusual even in the context of the multi-century tree-ring record.

[…]

The current drought in Texas has been unprecedented relative to the century-long observed record in a number of ways: the record-low precipitation, the extreme summer heat, and the enormous wildfires. The tree-ring record of PDSI confirms that, in a much longer context, the 2010-2011 Texas drought is an extraordinary event.

And it appears no relief is in sight, the federal Climate Prediction Center said last week in its Winter Outlook for December through February:

With La Niña in place Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and parts of surrounding states are unlikely to get enough rain to alleviate the ongoing drought. Texas, the epicenter of the drought, experienced its driest 12-month period on record from October 2010 through September 2011.

[Shoshana]

On another note, it was 26F overnight at ABIA breaking the old low record. 36F at Mabry.

I don't know how cold it got here - usually abt 3 degrees warmer than ABIA in winter but I don't think we got below freezing. I need to go check the soaker hoses!

[horselattitudesfarm]

Looks like our potential 3-day multi-inch rain event was a bust with only .2 inches of rain in a drizzly shower yesterday afternoon. Cloudy and dreary for 2 days with watching all the moisture passing overhead to our luckier friends in Oklahoma was a real disappointment. Oh well, another week of watching the lake behind our house drop even further. For the 3rd time, all hope goes to next weeks next chance for rain.

[Shoshana]

I got drizzled on Sunday downtown at Republic Square.

It's drizzling now.

I heard rain in the downspouts this morning but my rain gauge is only registering a trace aka it's wet on the bottom. It's a $4 gauge.

[somethingfunny]

Even if you've gotten rain lately, it's only been enough to maintain the current drought levels.

[Shoshana]

Wow. It's really really raining! And storming! It's been over a year since I have seen so much rain!

Well I guess it was more storm than rain but we'll take what rain we got .7"

[somethingfunny]

Recent improvement?

[Portastorm]

Picked up a little more than three quarters of an inch of rain in this morning's squall line. A lot of lightning and thunder as well but nothing severe. I could get used to fropas like this!

[South Texas Storms]

Picked up a little more than three quarters of an inch of rain in this morning's squall line. A lot of lightning and thunder as well but nothing severe. I could get used to fropas like this!

Congrats Porta! You deserved it! Unfortunately my home in SA missed out on the line of storms. But here in Aggieland I picked up 1.5 inches! Not bad...

[vbhoutex]

Picked up a little more than three quarters of an inch of rain in this morning's squall line. A lot of lightning and thunder as well but nothing severe. I could get used to fropas like this!

Congrats Porta! You deserved it! Unfortunately my home in SA missed out on the line of storms. But here in Aggieland I picked up 1.5 inches! Not bad...

You got that right on getting used to fropas like that!! Ended up with 1" total here in W. Houston. Looks like the weekend weather could get interesting and cold.