From NOAA:
THERE WILL BE A CHANCE OF HEAVY SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS DAILY THROUGH SATURDAY.
It’s like it never ends. Although, and as should be pointed out, we appear to have finally escaped the monsoon pattern that settled over Texas some weeks ago, so now we have thunderstorms blowing through daily, but we don’t have the unending torrential downpours that critically affected us throughout June.
That said, however, we’re not out of the wood yet. Even NOAA makes that clear in the flood warning still in place for Dallas, to wit:
THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR DALLAS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE …OR UNTIL THE WARNING IS CANCELLED [sic].
The truth of the situation is this: We’ve had almost our yearly allotment of precipitation in the last six months—most of it in the past two months—so the ground and runoff avenues (lakes, creeks, rivers, etc.) simply can’t handle more, at least not right now. Everything is saturated and overflowing, so even these thunderstorms aggravate an already precarious situation.
When people begged and pleaded for the drought to end, they should have been more specific in how precisely that should happen. Be careful what you wish for indeed…
[Update] This just in from NOAA: “AT 249 PM CDT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS DETECTED VERY HEAVY RAIN ALONG THE FAR WESTERN PORTIONS OF DALLAS COUNTY. THESE STORMS ARE DRIFTING TO THE EAST AT ABOUT 15 MPH AND ARE PRODUCING UP TO AN INCH OF RAIN PER HOUR.” It looks as though the storm will be here in the next fifteen or so, and I can already hear the thunder rolling in from just west of me, each rumble louder than the last.
And it’s so humid outside right now that it’s hard to breathe. The current temperature is 86°F (30°C) with a dewpoint of 74°F (23°C), which makes the relative humidity about 67% and the heat index about 94°F (34°C). I guess that means we’ll welcome the rain despite not needing more precipitation, if only so it will cool things down a bit and make it somewhat less oppressive outside.
Finally, they have raised our chances for heavy rain every day through the end of the week. We’re really not done with all this quite yet.
[Update 2] Another update from NOAA: “AN UPPER LEVEL LOW OVER OKLAHOMA WILL MOVE SOUTH INTO NORTH TEXAS TONIGHT AND TOMORROW. THIS WILL BRING THE CHANCE OF ORGANIZED HEAVY RAIN BACK TO NORTH TEXAS TONIGHT AND MONDAY…ESPECIALLY ALONG AND NORTH OF THE I-20 CORRIDOR.” Yes, I live north of the I-20 corridor. I see once again our chances for heavy rain have gone up since last I looked at the forecast, and I don’t just mean tonight or tomorrow—but for the whole week. Did someone say Noah was building a boat?