Blastfurnace 2022

[Biff Tannen 45695]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Dammit.  A little too NowThis on that one.  Well played.

[Gardner Barnes 1562]

Summer going out with a bang. Today should probably be the hottest day of the rest of 2022. This is also the last day of the year that Eastern portion of the state will see a sunset past 8:00 pm.  
I lived in an apartment back in 2011 and didn't really pay much attention to the weather back then, so can't really compare. Have we reached a consensus on whether this was the worst summer or 2nd runner up? It had to be the driest, right?
Will start "cool front watch" in 4 weeks or so. September 15th is about the average first day each Fall where the low is 70 or less. October 3 for 65. October 18 for 60. 

2011 was getting worse toward the end of August.

Remember this fire in bastrop?

[Biff Tannen 45695]

5 hours ago, Gardner Barnes said:

2011 was getting worse toward the end of August.

Remember this fire in bastrop?

FACK.  I was on Lake Austin when the second one started in Steiner Ranch.  I remember looking up going, "oh, that might be a problem".

Edited August 20, 2022 by Biff Tannen

[phdhorn 6224]

We could hit 100° in ATX proper today or tomorrow as a bit of lull in the rain.  But today would be the day, Sunday is supposed to be less hot, and through the next week I think we'll have a few days that don't hit 90°.

This has been too hot/weird a summer for me to say "never again (2022)" but the latest monthly forecast (CDC) calls for "normal" temps and precip, and "normal" starts Sept @ 95° and ends @ 88°.  

I can easily see another 10 days of 100° but scattered and not the endless beatdown.  I just hope that fuggin' high stays out over Nevada, which it's supposed to even with this hot summer possibly still having its fingers up our collective asses.

Edited August 20, 2022 by phdhorn

[South Austin 52523]

I know it’s almost two weeks out, but the Labor Day forecast looks somewhat bearable. High of 91 on game day.

[Fudge Nuggets 19209]

5 hours ago, South Austin said:

I know it’s almost two weeks out, but the Labor Day forecast looks somewhat bearable. High of 91 on game day.

That’s fucking perfect considering what we’ve been through so far this summer.

I never would have thought August would be the most reasonable month of an entire summer.  Hell, August has seemed better than May.

[kevwun 15811]

Yeah, 90 feels like spring.

[MissingInAction 25132]

Is this what people living in normal weather patterns call a "season"?

[Storm the Field 5297]

Took my dogs on a long walk starting around 9:00 this morning. Something I wouldn't even consider for most of the last 3 months. Was only in the mid-80's and there was a nice coastal breeze blowing from the Southeast. I didn't really get sweaty until a good 30 minutes in.

Right now it's 94 in Houston, and according to the 15-day forecast, that's the highest temp, by a good 5-6 degrees, that we're expected to experience all the way through Labor Day.

[atomheartbevo 89758]

19 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

Is this what people living in normal weather patterns call a "season"?

[Storm the Field 5297]

Well boys, we made it through the Dog Days of Summer.  3 weeks until "Fall" officially starts, though I wouldn't get my hopes up for many "pleasant" days in the near future, unless you're in the far Western or Northern portions of the state. For once, I'm jealous of Lubbock. 

For Austin/SA/DFW/Houston, the first 2 weeks of September appear to be a continuation of the final 2 weeks of August. High 80's/Low 90's with lots of clouds and decent rain chances. No sunny days to speak of in the 15-day. 

The GFS weather models are acting like they see a mild cool front making its way to Texas around 9/12, but none of the forecasts are putting any stock in it, nor should they this far out. I imagine when next week's models run, that front will have gone missing.

[YGIFS 19452]

It's still hot and humid for me, but at least temps are returning to normal and we're getting shittons of rain for first half of the month (or so it looks)

I don't have a facebook account but my wife is on the area trading group on there.  I listed my extra smoker on there so I was logging in to see about inquiries.  Her home page had a friend of hers with her husband and kids and all were wearing autumnal colored sweaters in a pumpkin patch.  And the comments below were that she took the family to a patch this past weekend to shoot those pics (looked professionally done) and couldn't wait until, the start of Fall, to post them.  And I thought wasn't Saturday like 105*?  And you made your kids do an hour-long photo shoot in sweaters?  What the fuck?  it wouldn't occur to me to try anything like that until well into October.  Is this like a thing all over texas?  

Anyway, looks like the lakes are gonna benefit from this next round.......woohoo!

[Orange&White 5528]

Are the pumpkins actual ripe/orange right now?

[YGIFS 19452]

Nah, they didn't look ripe but they didn't look half-bad actually.  That was the impressive part to me considering the drought they had to endure.  Knowing this woman though, she had ripe, fair trade, conflict free pumpkins shipped from farther north.  We had our annual back-to-school water balloon fight on Saturday in our 'hood and this woman's dragging her kids out in the mid-afternoon in direct sunlight (you could tell by the shadows behind them) in fucking sweaters.

so my way of saying i guess everybody's definition of when Summer ends is different.  Growing up way north of here, it was always Labor Day.  Now Labor Day is just a day to discuss "hey, I wonder how many more triple digit days we have left?"  This drought was fucking brutal, but looks like we're on the other side of it thankfully.  Does look like our fellow Texans south of Austin though are still in for a beating.  Hope they get proper rainfall and soon.

[Brisketexan 105180]

This is Texas.  We go from Blastfunace to Sweaty Sauna to What the hell was that, a cool breeze? to Fuck, everything is frozen.  Those are our seasons.

[texasdago 7575]

"High 80's/Low 90's with lots of clouds and decent rain chances. No sunny days to speak of in the 15-day. "

 

Yeah, man, I'm totally cool with this.  

[YGIFS 19452]

Yeah, I’ve seen the sun before.  I know what it looks like.  I’m good with overcast for awhile.  Or an eclipse.  Either way 

[texasdago 7575]

12 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah, I’ve seen the sun before.  I know what it looks like.  I’m good with overcast for awhile.  Or an eclipse.  Either way 

What was amazing about the summer in Austin was the lack of clouds... just unrelenting sun beating down and drying everything out... that or, if any clouds, they were small squishy ones compressed by high pressure.

[HenryJames 66135]

It was the fucking worst. 

[Deej 76858]

The summer heat and a constant rotation of extra dogs destroyed my backyard. Dust Bowl-type dry.  I gave up on keeping it up in the summer years ago and just toss out a ton of winter rye seed in the Fall and have a nice lush yard until the end of April. For some reason, two days after last week's rain, 90% of the rye popped back up. A week later, and I need to mow. Never seen it come back from desert conditions before. 

[YGIFS 19452]

^

this.  I went from bare-bones maintenance, survival level rationing of watering, and just pulling up weeds at the root to keep 'em from taking over.  Neighbor who was moving even gave me a mower much better than mine.  And I thought, "I got no fucking use for this, just more shit in my garage now."  Now I'm mowing every 5-7 days, still pulling weeds, but gotta start trimming bushes and shit again after football games.  The bounceback by the flora was really damn impressive considering how long we were locked in.  I can't even do my garlic spray for mosquitoes because there's never a 48-period with no rain.  Not that I'm complaining but those fuckers are back with a fervor. 

I may skip my annual desperate Sep/Oct lawn aeration rental from Home Depot because the ground's so damn moist, may be actual work this time.  

[Storm the Field 5297]

1 hour ago, texasdago said:

"High 80's/Low 90's with lots of clouds and decent rain chances. No sunny days to speak of in the 15-day. "

 

Yeah, man, I'm totally cool with this.  

I agree that when faced with two unappealing options, it's an easy choice of warm and overcast/rainy vs. sunny and blazing hot without end. It's "you wanna hop in the steam room set on low or get stuck in the malfunctioning sauna?"

I'm just ready as hell for that first "nice" day in late September/early October after a cool front rolls through with clear skies and low humidity and it tops out at 85 in the afternoon, before dropping to the high 60's after sunset. That to me is always one of the best damn days of the entire year. 

[Trey3216 15350]

5 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

^

this.  I went from bare-bones maintenance, survival level rationing of watering, and just pulling up weeds at the root to keep 'em from taking over.  Neighbor who was moving even gave me a mower much better than mine.  And I thought, "I got no fucking use for this, just more shit in my garage now."  Now I'm mowing every 5-7 days, still pulling weeds, but gotta start trimming bushes and shit again after football games.  The bounceback by the flora was really damn impressive considering how long we were locked in.  I can't even do my garlic spray for mosquitoes because there's never a 48-period with no rain.  Not that I'm complaining but those fuckers are back with a fervor. 

I may skip my annual desperate Sep/Oct lawn aeration rental from Home Depot because the ground's so damn moist, may be actual work this time.  

Yeah. The fact that my crape myrtles went from starting to lose leaves to fully flowering in about 6 days was beyond impressive. Now those sumbitches have grown about 2 feet in the last month.  Gonna have to cut the shit out of them this winter.  

[YGIFS 19452]

Yeah, our neighbor's crape myrtle went from looking like it needed to be cut down to keep from falling into the driveway with kids playing to an obnoxious bloom.  Our purple flowering bushes are lit up as fuck (can't remember the species name).  Only thing that is still struggling as fuck are my three loquat trees.  Leaves are there but trunk/branch integrity is still more frail than I'd like, never mind they've quit two fruit cycles.  That has more to do with the freezes than the drought but the leaves are saying "we're here to party" are a vibrant deep green with some lustre on 'em, but the rest of the tree is like, "Meh..."   We have an fair sized island of purple hearts in the  back yard that has also been slow to recover, hoping that's just temporary (it's under a rather substantial tree canopy but isn't showing the signs of life I'd like).  And all my sago palms are going nuts too, in a good way.  

Anyway, just really surprised by how robust everything bounced back.  Gonna make for a fun (as my youngest calls it) "Leaf Time" in a couple months. 

My balls still stick to my leg most days though, so y''all enjoy that visual this evening.    

 

[Storm the Field 5297]

1 hour ago, texasdago said:

What was amazing about the summer in Austin was the lack of clouds... just unrelenting sun beating down and drying everything out... that or, if any clouds, they were small squishy ones compressed by high pressure.

The extreme heat and complete drought over June and July were the obvious worst parts of Summer 2022, but let's not forget also how damn early the hot weather arrived.

I didn't start the 2021 thread until 6/7. This year's thread started on 5/3. It got up to the mid-90's on the first weekend of May. That's a good 10 degrees hotter than it should be at that point. We got like 6 weeks of a decent Spring this year before it just went full blown Summer. 

[Biff Tannen 45695]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

It was the fucking worst. 

2011 was worse, but this is definitely in a solid 2nd place for my lifetime.

[Biff Tannen 45695]

28 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Our purple flowering bushes are lit up as fuck (can't remember the species name).

This guy?  Mine is going nuts too.

[Trey3216 15350]

28 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah, our neighbor's crape myrtle went from looking like it needed to be cut down to keep from falling into the driveway with kids playing to an obnoxious bloom.  Our purple flowering bushes are lit up as fuck (can't remember the species name).  Only thing that is still struggling as fuck are my three loquat trees.  Leaves are there but trunk/branch integrity is still more frail than I'd like, never mind they've quit two fruit cycles.  That has more to do with the freezes than the drought but the leaves are saying "we're here to party" are a vibrant deep green with some lustre on 'em, but the rest of the tree is like, "Meh..."   We have an fair sized island of purple hearts in the  back yard that has also been slow to recover, hoping that's just temporary (it's under a rather substantial tree canopy but isn't showing the signs of life I'd like).  And all my sago palms are going nuts too, in a good way.  

Anyway, just really surprised by how robust everything bounced back.  Gonna make for a fun (as my youngest calls it) "Leaf Time" in a couple months. 

My balls still stick to my leg most days though, so y''all enjoy that visual this evening.    

 

Yeah, my loquat tree is looking rough still.  Haven't had fruit since March/April of '20.  Didn't have leaves all last year.  Have leaves on about 1/2 the tree right now, but I'm thinking it's just stressed and not growing properly.  Will give it 1 more try and then I'm gonna have to cut it down.   

[YGIFS 19452]

3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

This guy?  Mine is going nuts too.

yeah, I can never remember and my wife almost every day says, "Oh, the XYZ's are really coming in with these rains."  And I just wanna laugh and say, "You've got to mulch sweetie, you've got to..."  We keep ours at about 4'-5' and kinda boxed off between me and the neighbor's for nice privacy flora.  But they just lit up this week.  We're all tracking in blooms on our shoes like madness.

[YGIFS 19452]

9 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Yeah, my loquat tree is looking rough still.  Haven't had fruit since March/April of '20.  Didn't have leaves all last year.  Have leaves on about 1/2 the tree right now, but I'm thinking it's just stressed and not growing properly.  Will give it 1 more try and then I'm gonna have to cut it down.   

So what's the consensus on when you give up on those things in our climate.  My three had survived freezes, droughts and everything in between.  But they ain't been right since Winter of 2020.  Had to take one way back/in/down this past Winter just for safety.  It's growing again and looking better, it was the smallest of the three by far and in a place where it would just fall into the house and not hurt much.  But the other two are just too damn tall and too damn big, if they can't recover, they are just a safety risk (one's by power lines, the other by where the kids play out front).  The larger one is 5 feet higher than the highest point of my roof, so that's gotta be 35+' tall with a trunk at about 2' in diameter, and I'm getting too fucking old to get on the roof and prune it myself.  When do I know it's time for Loquat Hospice?  

Edited September 1, 2022 by YGIFS

[Hate 20128]

It's interesting to watch the drought monitor week to week as it has finally started raining again.

 

This was October of 2011.  So yes, this summer sucked but it wasn't even close to 2011.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Hate

[texasdago 7575]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

This guy?  Mine is going nuts too.

Texas sage.

 

I'm going to steal your Queen Victoria agaves.  Those are some slooooooooow growing agaves... put in two Agave Wocomahi recently that are growing nicely.  Much better growth rate.  

Agreed on plant life perking up.  The greenbelts and parks nearby were dreadful and now they look so green!

What I do know is this... it was an absolute pleasure shutting off my irrigation system this week.  Beautiful.

Edited September 1, 2022 by texasdago

[YGIFS 19452]

How the fuck can I not remember "Texas Sage"?  Thank you! 

Yeah, i noticed his agaves and was jealous.  Mine took back on a very healthy color but haven't grown at all, jealous of those at Biff's.  And I mean, not just during this past rainfall but the past two years.  I shut my system off completely last week with no plans to turn it back on.  I replace the valves and sprayers and solenoids myself each year.  but it's due for some digging and major sub-surface overhauling.  I didn't want to traumatize the lawn even more, and the parts pricing I got was insane, so thought I'd put it off until Spring.  But suddenly irrigation companies are coming outta the woodwork with "50% off parts" deals 'n shit.  Maybe knock this out in october especially since yard can easily bounce back from trenching with even just half this rain.  

Also, looking at that map from Hate...I feel bad.  We're talking about little gardening and lawn details and DIY projects I forget sometimes that folks real close by to us are still hurting so bad from this shit.  

[Biff Tannen 45695]

1 hour ago, texasdago said:

I'm going to steal your Queen Victoria agaves.

Not mine.  From the internet.

[texasdago 7575]

17 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Not mine.  From the internet.

even better?

[texasdago 7575]

20 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

How the fuck can I not remember "Texas Sage"?  Thank you! 

Yeah, i noticed his agaves and was jealous.  Mine took back on a very healthy color but haven't grown at all, jealous of those at Biff's.  And I mean, not just during this past rainfall but the past two years.  I shut my system off completely last week with no plans to turn it back on.  I replace the valves and sprayers and solenoids myself each year.  but it's due for some digging and major sub-surface overhauling.  I didn't want to traumatize the lawn even more, and the parts pricing I got was insane, so thought I'd put it off until Spring.  But suddenly irrigation companies are coming outta the woodwork with "50% off parts" deals 'n shit.  Maybe knock this out in october especially since yard can easily bounce back from trenching with even just half this rain.  

Also, looking at that map from Hate...I feel bad.  We're talking about little gardening and lawn details and DIY projects I forget sometimes that folks real close by to us are still hurting so bad from this shit.  

I'd be curious to drive by and past Llano on 71.  Last time we were out there in the spring, it looked like a tan and brown disaster.  Hope it is recovering.

[miguelito 11266]

The sage in bloom is like perfume.

[YChang 3455]

I’m also amazed at my Texas Sage blooming… from nothing to tons of flowers.

[Deej 76858]

Plant life after the first rain...

[HenryJames 66135]

I mowed my yard today.

[Okie State 3821]

My backyard looks pretty much back to normal after looking like complete shit. Wife keeps mentioning how the neighbors mowed so I guess that's what I'm doing this morning.

[texasdago 7575]

I didn't mow for about three months.  Finally mowed and I just want it to get rain so I don't have to turn on my sprinkler.

 

[HenryJames 66135]

It’s 68 and I have my windows open.

[hornian 5222]

2 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

It’s 68 and I have my windows open.

[hookemATL 11803]

Mosquitos in my backyard:

[Armybrat 40857]

[HenryJames 66135]

I may put on a sweater!

[hornian 5222]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

Did you take a picture of that phone with a different one instead of just taking a screenshot?

[miguelito 11266]

Hey, at least it's charged and right side up.

[texasdago 7575]

We to Slaughter Creek trail this morning. Felt glorious.