2019 Rain Thread

[phdhorn 6,224]

1 hour ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Are we done ? Is that it?

LOL, haven't seen something like this from NWS is awhile.. translation below each:

Quote

.UPDATE...
The last few severe storms are just about out of our area for this
morning. All models, including mesoscale runs continue to have
difficulty with the variety of boundaries and forcing at all levels
and scales. The best course of action in this case is to trend from
the current situation and assume smaller scales of motion and
boundaries will fade into the background synoptic flow/forcing, until
perturbed again by a weak shortwave trough, upper level jet streak,
and/or daytime/orographic heating.

We have no fucking idea if it's going to rain in the next 12 hours or not.

Quote

The sensible weather will be mostly cloudy skies the rest of the day
for our area. We kept 20 PoPs on the offhand the small scale
features do not dissipate before daytime heating maximizes. A
shortwave trough, upper level jet streak, and daytime/orographic
heating over the Serranias del Burro mountains in northern Mexico are
tracking for a familiar evolution of isolated supercells forming
mid- afternoon, then moving east and their cold pools merging to form
an MCS that will sweep across South Central or Deep South Texas
tonight. 

Rain's picking up in Mexico again... but we don't know if it's gonna rain around here, so we'll be safe and say... well at least it'll be cloudy today... and could rain.

Quote

Coarser resolution synoptic models (GFS/Euro/NAM) indicate
that likelihood, and if you put on a "fuzzy/neighborhood" filter, the
HRRR and TTech WRF would indicate something similar - just don`t get
focused on specific timing and location. Just sent an update to all
grid, graphic, and text products to reflect this forecast thinking.

A special note to anyone with outdoor plans this evening and
overnight - do not be lulled by the lack of activity during the day
and early evening. Monitor the weather and have a safety plan
including shelter in a sturdy building if storms approach.

Our models say... it might... and it might not.  Then we ran some more localized models... and they said the same thing.

So, nobody knows if it's gonna rain.  But it could.   So watch for rain tonight.  Or not.
--
(to defend them a little, this is a very tough forecast map... lotsa little disturbances tracking through Texas, no big low... lotsa frontal boundaries/troughs near us, atmosphere is very irregularly stabilized (due to "raining out" and evening the air mixture, but there are places where turbulence/storms could pop up.  There'a a lotta shit floating around up there and the weather dynamics of this are very haphazard... really tough conditions as opposed to clear low, dry line, etc.)

So my guess is that things will stay dry most of the day, and this next little twist in the atmosphere is gonna go by later today.  Depending on how much sun or at least warm air gets mixed with cold updrafts along a frontal or trough boundary will tell where the rain happens.  I think we'll get some lift today and somewhere in this area will be rainy (probably not severe) weather between say 4 and midnight - 1-2 inches in heavier spots, up to an inch in lighter.

That's what I think, anyway.
 

 

 

[HouTex 1,888]

What about that shack outside La Grange?

They got a lota nice girls there.

[Js1 85,490]

1 hour ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Are we done ? Is that it?

Things your wife said last night? 

[atomheartbevo 89,775]

Friend near Conroe just got tornado warning alerts.  

[Hate 20,130]

Yeah, there is a tornado warning just west if where I am and it appears it’s going to move just north of me. Hopefully.

[UnivTex34 1,763]

If you are in Tomball/Spring, this thing looks bad. Headed straight for my in-laws place.

[UTPhil2006 3,809]

4 minutes ago, UnivTex34 said:

If you are in Tomball/Spring, this thing looks bad. Headed straight for my in-laws place.

Yep been watching the news.  Headed right at Spring

[UnivTex34 1,763]

1 minute ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Yep been watching the news.  Headed right at Spring

My inlaws live in spitting distance of the TIAH radome, which it is headed straight for. (at Hooks).

[UnivTex34 1,763]

Died out, became a blob.

[irishtexan 11,522]

4 hours ago, Longhorn Al said:

Came across this today browsing the Texas Portal to History:

May 4, 1922

 

At Longview Park in South Austin, there is a fenced off family plot with a mother Sarah and daughter Ava Bargsley, who both died died in that tornado.

 

The mystery of the Bargsley family plot

https://www.austin360.com/article/20150829/ENTERTAINMENT/308299766

This mystery begins in a graveyard.

Amid a grove of junipers in a Southwest Austin park sits a family plot guarded by a high mesh fence. Four legible stones stand among the rubble. Three of the same family design — decorated with bas-relief garlands — face the trail.

“Father: John Bargsley: March 13, 1828-Oct. 13 1904.”

“Mother: Sarah Bargsley: Sept. 2, 1834-May 4, 1922.”

“Ada Lena Bargsley: July 6, 1877-May 4, 1922.”

Why did family members of different generations die on the exact same day?

During one of their frequent trips to Longview Park, Kevin Davis, who lives nearby, noted the death dates to his wife, historian Chantal McKenzie.

They drew no conclusions. Later, however, McKenzie was browsing through the Austin History Center website when she ran across an arresting picture: In harrowing grays, a funnel cloud swirls around the dome of the State Capitol.

The date for the tornado: May 4, 1922.

Did the Bargsleys die in the double tornado that killed 13 people on that day, McKenzie wondered.

I must admit that, aside from the famous image of the Capitol, I knew almost nothing about the city’s deadliest tornado. Time for an always-welcome trip to the history center.

Preserved there is Frederic William Simonds’ 24-page “The Austin, Texas, Tornadoes of May 4, 1922,” published in the University of Texas Bulletin for Feb. 15, 1923.

Simonds was a professor of geology who witnessed the more westerly of the two twisters.

“About four o’clock, the writer was suddenly summoned from home,” Simonds writes, “a block and a half north of the campus of the University of Texas ... by excited shouts directing his attention to an unusual cloud display in the north. Reaching the street, he saw in a direction west of north, a quickly advancing, dark and threatening mass of storm clouds which pended a rapidly whirling funnel so characteristic of tornadoes.”

Simonds calmly, chillingly records their paths. The first touched down in four places, starting six miles north of Austin near Spicewood Springs, then a mile to the southwest. After that, it smacked the State Institute for Deaf, Dumb and Blind Colored Youths on Bull Creek Road between 38th and 45th streets. It finally belted the Deep Eddy recreational camp.

Copious photographs published in the Bulletin — and others housed at the history center — show smashed buildings. One person died in the first tornado.

The second tornado split off and raked the Texas State Cemetery in East Austin before bouncing in a “hit and miss” action over Travis Heights. It severely damaged three buildings on the St. Edward’s University campus, then destroyed businesses around Penn Field, including Woodward Manufacturing and a big water tower. It roared south to damage the school in the town of St. Elmo and the Hartkoff Dairy.

“From appearances after the storm, a veritable rain of timbers, planks, splinters and roofing must have swept over the Post Road leading from Austin to San Antonio,” Simonds writes. “As automobile traffic on this highway is, as a rule, quite heavy, it is nothing short of miraculous that no lives were lost.”

The tornado was not finished.

“Two and a half miles southeast of Oak Hill, eight or more miles from its origins in Austin, the tornado completely destroyed the Bargsley home, causing the death of six persons,” he writes. “The violence of the storm at this point is shown by the fact that, of the house, scarcely a vestige remained, barring the stones used for the chimney. ... Visitors on the scene were amazed to find that even the fowls had been plucked of their feathers.”

All told, the second twister killed 12 people, half of them at the Bargsley house. Today, one can explore Longview Park and the attached preserve to find stacked stone fences and other evidence of farming or ranching. A few small private ranches survive nearby, although the surrounding neighborhoods were developed as early as the 1970s.

On May 5, 1922, headlines for the Austin Statesman read: “13 Dead, 44 Injured, Property Loss in Storm in Excess $700,000: Tornado Leaves a Trail of Ruin in its Path.”

Remembering the paper’s response in a 1960 report, William J. Weeg said he was working at the Statesman offices at Eighth and Brazos streets. Managing editor E.J. Walthall, “was just fixing to leave when he saw the twister coming. He yelled, and we both got on the phones, calling the composing room crew and the stereotypers back to work and checking for information.”

After reporting on Travis Heights damage, Weeg took other first-hand accounts by phone.

On the front page back in 1922, the Statesman listed among the dead: “Miss Ada Bargsley, 46” and “Mrs. John Bargsley, Sr., 89.” The others who died at their home that day were “John Thompson, 26,” “Mrs. Alta Thompson, mother of John Thompson,” “Maria Kinchion, 70,” and, in a sad sign of the times, “Harper, girl, negress, 10.”

Over the following decades, this newspaper published the living memories of survivors, including a story written by J. Frank Dobie and rendered in flinch-worthy dialect.

Historian Mike Cox gave a clean account and interviewed experts for a 1970 newspaper article.

“In 1922, Austin only had about 20,000 residents,” meteorologist David Barnes told Cox. “If you think what could have happened if that tornado had hit this year, the death rate might have easily been 10 times as great.”

Now imagine that today.

 

Here's a picture of the same tornado near the capitol:

[Biff Tannen 45,697]

11 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

“From appearances after the storm, a veritable rain of timbers, planks, splinters and roofing must have swept over the Post Road leading from Austin to San Antonio,” Simonds writes. “As automobile traffic on this highway is, as a rule, quite heavy, it is nothing short of miraculous that no lives were lost.”

Accurate

[bolverk 29,705]

1 hour ago, irishtexan said:

 

I don't live too far from there and went through the same discovery process a little over ten years ago after tromping through there and the nature preserve with my daughter, which was a regular weekend deal back then. Good times.

Back then, the area was a Freeman's town (settled by freed black slaves) and was called Kincheonville. You'll note that one of the victims had the last name Kinchion (spelled differently in the article). The old street grid still forms part of the neighborhood west of Longview Park with the names of, I assume, the children of a Mr. Thomas Kinche(i)on.

Street names:

• Thomas Kincheon
• Dalton
• Elija
• Blumie
• Minnie
• James Ander
• Dunn

Whoever was the developer of the surrounding neighborhood must've been a real asshole (or possibly history buff), because many of those streets were named after Civil War events and plantations of the Old South.

• Harpers Ferry
• Clarksburg
• Galesburg
• Plantations
• Dunleigh (I'm assuming this was a mistake and was meant to be Dunleith
• Oak Alley
• Burnside

[clapclapclap 9,000]

After that, it smacked the State Institute for Deaf, Dumb and Blind Colored Youths

 

Geez Louise, reads like a Blazing Saddles skit.

Edited May 3, 2019 by clapclapclap

[Auto Driller 2,506]

3 hours ago, Dewey said:

Apparently La Grange got hit

I drove through La Grange today and was at a full stop on 71 for about 45 minutes. Figured it was an accident.

Tornado touched down no more that a few minutes before I would have driven straight through it. A couple buildings were completely destroyed. The crazy thing is that the damage was extremely localized - you can see in the picture that street signs a few hundred feet away from the building are undamaged.

Hopefully no one was injured, but from the looks of things it would be hard to imagine that’s the case.

[bolverk 29,705]

Streetview of the damaged building.

[phdhorn 6,224]

There was less cloud cover over that area the past 2 days, so it makes sense there was more heat to generate that tornado.  About the only good news is that it was a small one.  Oh well, spring in Texas is gonna do that.

Next disturbance moving at us now, the line forming.  Could get bumpy between now and midnight, small but strong localized storms.  Hail not out of the question, tornado unlikely but not unpossible (as we saw today).   Better than very good chance we all get wet in ATX by the end of the day.

Next round coming in Mon or Tues.  I love it more or less.

[Anastasis 23,481]

Prepare your anus. 

[atomheartbevo 89,775]

2 hours ago, irishtexan said:

The second tornado split off and raked the Texas State Cemetery in East Austin.

“A company of cadets from Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College drove over to Austin to assist in rescue efforts, and recovered hundreds of bodies.  Officials became alarmed when the enthusiastic cadets began bringing them skeletons.”

[Longhorn Al 440]

What is the best site to see those pixelated maps that show the wind speed/direction similar to the ones below?  Or like the ones KXAN will show on tv, but I can't find on their site.

8 hours ago, UnivTex34 said:

 

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Longhorn Al

[atomheartbevo 89,775]

Wondered when the flash flood warnings would pop up around Austin.  

[Updawg 2,286]

Force field must be at happy hour. Dumping in the 49

[HenryJames 66,148]

Cow pissing on a flat rock in 78722.

[LebongJames 1,813]

Crazy strong rain and wind here in South Austin.

[Austinvines 318]

The southern boundary of the rain is just a bit south of us and doesn’t appear to be moving north but the orange and red blob appears plenty big to the west (and moving this is at). My spouse is freaking that our sons are planning on driving to a late night Endgame showing around 10.

I’ve decided to drink.

[MFEU93MK9S8IW6K6FV0X 95]

Cheers

[MissingInAction 25,161]

The sky is a lovely shade of green.

[Rip76 4,946]

https://texasstormchasers.com/2019/05/significant-flooding-ongoing-in-travis-hays-counties-including-austin/

[Deej 76,882]

[Blotto 23,564]

Plenty of 4--6 inch precip totals showing up around austin on my weather app. 

[Wally Pryor 5,262]

Has to be water rescues going on, somewhere.   Too much rain, too quickly.

[Hate 20,130]

Has to be water rescues going on, somewhere.   Too much rain, too quickly.

And too many dumb people.

[Blotto 23,564]

1 minute ago, Hate said:

 

And too many dumb people.

 

Unfortunately they breed faster than they drive into fast moving waters.

[Deej 76,882]

I am beyond feeling sorry for people trying to go through low water crossings during these events.

[HornsOverIthaca 2,335]

5 hours ago, UnivTex34 said:

Died out, became a blob.

That’s how William The Conqueror went out.

Edited May 4, 2019 by HornsOverIthaca

[clapclapclap 9,000]

Tornado warning south of to east of Elgin

Edited May 4, 2019 by clapclapclap

[Longhorn Al 440]

Coming down hard in Kyle for the last 20 minutes.

[clapclapclap 9,000]

37 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

Has to be water rescues going on, somewhere.   Too much rain, too quickly.

From da link:

Numerous water rescues are already underway due to folks driving into high water. We’ve heard of at least one vehicle swept away.

A Folkswagen?

 

The LCRA has begun flood operations at the Tom Miller Dam due to rapidly rising water levels on Lake Austin. 

Edited May 4, 2019 by clapclapclap

[Hate 20,130]

Somehow we managed to go through a severe storm today without losing power, but no with no wind or rain we have lost power. Fuck you Centerpojnt!!!

[Mr.Hovis 70]

Checking in from Driftwood and well, wood is drifting all over the yard. Only lost power once so far, PEC has made progress . I think.

[Bevo Num1 1,021]

Jim Spencer doing his thing right now.

[Wally Pryor 5,262]

Yup

[Bevo Num1 1,021]

Just under 3 inches over the last hour here on Buda.

[HornsOverIthaca 2,335]

It’s another one of those days where I’m glad my garage has room for cars.

[Chet Steadman 940]

Uncle Jim gets visibly upset anytime the young buck talks over him.   

[UnivTex34 1,763]

2 hours ago, Longhorn Al said:

What is the best site to see those pixelated maps that show the wind speed/direction similar to the ones below?  Or like the ones KXAN will show on tv, but I can't find on their site.

 

This is an app called RadarScope, works on phones, tablets, and computer 

[hookemATL 11,825]

Any updates on Elgin/McDade situation are greatly appreciated. My mom is currently sheltering in the closet. Fuck tornados. 

[UnivTex34 1,763]

I’m in 78748, my rain gauge says 5.83 right now and still going up. Was raining at 6 inches per hour for a bit.

[Bevo Num1 1,021]

Any updates on Elgin/McDade situation are greatly appreciated. My mom is currently sheltering in the closet. Fuck tornados. 

Elgin should be fine. Just renewed the tornado warning just east of it.

[hookemATL 11,825]

My folks are tucked right in the middle of McDade and Paige. Shit is freaking me out. 

[Bevo Num1 1,021]

My folks are tucked right in the middle of McDade and Paige. Shit is freaking me out. 

It looks like the worst part of it is just east of Paige.