Weather

This past Saturday, February 2, 2013, was Ground Hog Day.  This was a huge celebration in Pennsylvania, settled by Germans, home of the day.  The German influence goes way back in time to the Romans who had conquered half of the British Isles they took the custom over to the mainland and influenced the Teutons (Germans), them thinking this was a good way to see if winter would drag on, or end.

It was cloudy in Pennsylvania this past Saturday the ground hog didn’t see his shadow so spring is near.  But in Texas things were different.

Bee Cave Bob, our local prognosticator, an armadillo, came out of his burrow, saw his shadow and went back in.  Six more weeks of winter down here!  This picture is of an armadillo that wandered into our yard.

Our weather forecasters need to get their act together, because this sounds like a serious dichotomy to me.

It’s been raining for the past 2 hours, not a deluge, but a good steady rain, praise the Lord and the forecast for today is 100% chance of rain, 60% for tomorrow, 50% for Saturday and 30% Sunday, that’s hard to beat!  The reason for this wonderful forecast is a “cold” front colliding with an upper level low and slowly moving toward the southeast maybe it’ll bring some relief to our drought stricken Country?

It figures that the rain would screw something up, Mickey Donahoo and I had a dove hunt planned for this afternoon and he just called and we both decided that getting wet wasn’t the best thing to do.  However, the practice would put us in good stead for Saturday morning’s opening of our State’s Special Teal Season, we are planning to go to the “Honey Hole” and have a go at the little ducks.

We did get some practice this past week on the white wings with some half limit shooting, but if we hadn’t missed some easy shots, we’d been close to limiting out.  Sometimes, around the little lake, the footing isn’t the best, chalk that up to some misses, then the situation where a snap shot is taken, more misses and finally, sometimes we shoot in front of the doves, sometimes, more likely, behind them, but it can’t be beat being outdoors!

There was an opportunity for one picture.  There’s a spoil bank where the owner opened up the far end of the lake to drain the water into the deeper parts.  Mickey and I were going to stand back to back, each looking in a different direction, and not having to yell back in forth, “There’s a bird behind you, or coming in from the right or left.”  So much for that plan!

A series of stories about Rocky Point, Mexico wouldn’t be complete without the severe thunderstorm we endured, tented out on the beach there.  These storms are called chubascos, a chubasco, according to Marquez and Wold’s “Compilation Of Colonial Spanish Terms”, is a violent summer storm common to the Sea of Cortes (El Golfo) and surrounding lands.

These storms are much like our “Purple Thunderers” along the Texas Gulf Coast. Having been caught on the water in 3 of these monsters and until safely reaching shore, I was scared to death each time! During a trip to Rocky Point, Mexico, one caught my family and I and my in-laws on land and it was a doozy!

My family, 3 kids and ex-wife and her parents, "Memaw" and “Papaw” Buck, drove down on a Friday to Rocky Point to camp in our tent for the weekend. Friday night we cooked on the beach and enjoyed a restful, caressed by a light breeze, sleep. Saturday was spent sight seeing, 4 wheeling and, when the tide was out, gathering shellfish from the numerous rocks.

We cooked the mussels and oysters on Saturday night and the gentle lapping of the surf provided a background for the magnificent star show overhead. As we were turning in, we noticed lightning flashes on the horizon, and thought, a nice exclamation point for a fun day.

Crack! Boom! Crack! Boom! The lightning was striking close by. Crack! Boom! Closer still. The wind was picking up as I unzipped the tents front door, and was greeted by a mix of sand and rain and quickly zipping up, Crack Boom right down the beach lightning hit something! Everyone was awake and a collective “What’s the noise? Is it a storm? What can we do?” My reply was, ”Nothing, were stuck here until it blows over.” And, it almost blew us over.

Sleep was impossible, but everyone hunkered down and waited. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, rain and sand slammed into the tent and the wind blew with a frightening velocity, bending all the tent poles. Soon it passed, we went back to sleep, not even bothering to unzip the tent flap and look outside.

Waking up early, we went and surveyed the area. Almost everything, except for our tent and cars, was blown off of the beach. A sign was shattered, probably, by the lightning and our tent, the poles being bent from the wind was tilted at a funny angle. Closer inspection revealed that the tent poles were all bent in the same direction, I’m sure by the wind. Hopefully, the combined weight of 4 adults and 3 kids helped to anchor us to the ground?

How far we would have rolled?  I’ve thought about this many times, if our tent pins would have come loose, we probably would have rolled back to Phoenix!  

My life has been blessed with many different events; some rewarding, some terrifying, many dangerous, many stimulating, but none remain with me like Allison, the tropical storm that flooded and devastated not only Texas and Louisiana, but also the Southeast and Eastern United States.  This is my longest story and the drama and full extent of the damage could only be captured with a long post.  Breaking it up into 2 would only dilute the impact!

In late May of 1998 tropical storm Allison began as a tropical wave off the coast of Africa, moved west and crossed upper, South America into the Pacific, then moved over Mexico back into the Gulf of Mexico and wandered north, made landfall between Freeport and Galveston Island.  The storm had 2 eyes, with both passing over my home in Bayou Vista.  It hit Houston and moved not over 100 miles north and because of high pressure to its north, stalled, then moved south back into the Gulf Of Mexico, pounding the entire Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard and finally sputtering out in Massachusetts where it produced a tornado and flooding.  It was the costliest tropical storm in history and the only one that has had its name retired!  Houston experienced over 7 inches of rain in an hour and over 28 inches in 12 hours and that is where my Allison story begins. 

Allison’s rain was pounding us and around 2:00 PM, my partner, Bob Baugh, said he thought I should head on down to Bayou Vista and make sure my house was OK.  My experiences on Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston, told me that it would be a long, difficult and possibly dangerous drive down there.

Layla was working part-time, in far north Houston, for a national softball organization and I headed out, called her and said that she should start home right away.  We had just sold our home in Cypress, Texas and were living full time in Bayou Vista.  The next day we were planning on driving to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Layla was running a senior softball tournament and I was playing in it.

Starting out around 3:00 PM, traffic was building.  Our local media was wearing their rain suits inside of their studios and telling us to brace for a tropical storm with 50 mile per hour winds.  Overkill, I thought.  Traffic on I-45 was awful, not thinning out until past the NASA exit and when the traffic thinned, here came the rain.  It poured buckets on us, slowing speeds to around 40.  It poured for the next 10 miles and when I reached the Dickinson exit, the rain stopped and the skies lightened up.  I looked to my right, west, and saw, not 5 miles away, a funnel cloud hanging down nearly to the ground.  It was heading north, so no immediate danger to me.

Turning up the radio, I heard that the eye of Allison had just passed over Galveston Island.  Wow, I thought, I must be in the eye right now.  That makes 3 for me!  The next 10 miles down to Bayou Vista were fairly nice, light rain and not much wind.  I pulled into my driveway and my neighbor, Jack Bustos, was standing in his driveway and said to me, “Hey, the eye just passed over here!  Come on in for a drink.”  “OK,” accepting the offer.  We were chatting about what a strange storm this was when it started raining again and I cut our visit short and ran home.  Then it really started to rain!

During my travel south, Layla was trying to get down to Bayou Vista also, but was hung up in the traffic and rain.  Freeways were being closed and she made it no farther than West Belt and Westheimer, where, because of the rain and flooding, she decided to get a room in a motel and meet up with me in the morning.  My company’s offices were right across the street from her motel, but Bob and the staff had already gone home, so she was too late for them to help her.  She called me and we decided she would be safe to stay where she was.

It rained and rained and rained, with a constant wind of 35 to 45, a steady hard wind, and the water in the canal was rising, not from the heavy rain but from the expected 5, foot tidal surge that Allison packed.  Raising my 22, foot boat as high as I could in the boat shed, it should have plenty of clearance between the hull and the water. 

The water had risen 3 feet and was already over the bulkheads, washing into my yard, so I went into the garage and made sure everything was up off of the concrete, floor.  If we actually had a 5, foot surge, water would be in the garage.  My property was 9 feet above sea level and the street was 11, which meant we could still get out if need be.

It was raining hard, wind blowing and then it stopped.  I went out onto my deck just as Jack, my neighbor came out and yelled over to me, “Looks like another eye, that’s real strange.  How about another drink?”  “No thanks,” I replied, thinking that when the storm on the backside of the eye picked back up, I could be stranded next door.  This made the fourth storm-eye I had been in, enough for anyone I thought!

The night passed with more rain and wind and the tidal surge didn’t make it into the garage, just up to the patio.  Not much storm when I awoke and called Layla and said for her to be ready over at my office and I would pick her up in 2 hours.  She told me what to pack for her for our trip to Arkansas and I was on my way.

Houston was flooded, but the freeways were open with not much traffic and I buzzed on in.  We loaded up, parked her Suburban in a secure area behind my office, and headed north up I-45 in my 4WD Suburban..  Water everywhere and a light rain falling on us until we passed Huntsville, 60 miles north of Houston, when the rain hit us.  By “the rain”, I mean the main rains of Allison. 

The storm had stopped north of Huntsville and was dumping rain over the countryside.  On the Interstate we were forced to slow down, blinkers flashing, to 30 miles per hour for the next 50 miles!  By the time we had driven to Fairfield we had passed through the heart of Allison, but no “eyes” for me this time.  With a light mist and rain all of the way we drove on to Hot Springs, with the weather clearing the next day.

We followed the storm closely on radio and TV and the tournament proceeded as scheduled and my team won our classification and qualified for the Nationals in Plano in September.  Allison was another story.

The storm made landfall in Texas, on June 4, 2001, passed through Houston, stopped around Buffalo, north of Houston, turned back into the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into Louisiana, then skipped down the north shore of the Gulf, turned northeast along the Georgia/Florida line, up the East Coast and finally, on June 18, turned out into the North Atlantic Ocean.  Damage estimates were over six billion dollars.  Texas and Louisiana led the list, with third place in damage, of all things, Pennsylvania!  Over 40 people were killed by the storm, 23 in Texas alone, and Allison dumped over 40 inches of rain on Southeast Texas, the fourth highest amount of any storm in recorded history.

So ended Allison, the most expensive, damaging and dangerous tropical storm on record!  

At first, moving to Arizona in mid-January, 1971 was a challenging experience, but as we became acclimated, the entire family thoroughly enjoyed the State and its many outdoor activities.   Along with our acre lot and diving pool, our house, a four bed room, Spanish colonial period style, with stucco walls and a courtyard, was very comfortable.  During mid spring of that year, the family had survived a tornado that had hit our mountain, Mummy Mountain and bounced over our house, tearing into northern Scottsdale and yes, it did sound like a freight train.

Come June 1, into the pool we went. The water was still cool, but wow, our own pool!  On a pleasant summer afternoon, only 110 degrees, we were enjoying the water when we noticed, moving rather fast to our southeast, a funny looking cloud and before we knew it the funny looking cloud was within two miles of us, rolling in our direction.  So like the flatlanders we were, we kept on swimming and playing and soon it was a block away when we figured out that the cloud was made of sand.  

It was a sand storm with epic proportions and it blew over us for the next 15 minutes!  No one was hurt, but everything, including us watchers, was a mess and liberally doused with a covering of fine sand.  The sand seeped into our house, our cars, and our beautiful pool had almost an inch of sand on the bottom.

If you are a beginner in pool maintenance, try cleaning sand out.  After this storm we hired a professional and in their local and national advertising, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce never mentions tornadoes or sand storms.  

When I was a little boy, my mother told me a story about her childhood in west Texas, about it raining during a sandstorm.  She said it rained mud and that the mud was much harder to remove than dust!

This past Friday, the 20th of May, the folks in Mills County, I was in San Saba and just missed it, had a great hail storm!  During the past 3 weeks, hopefully, our serious drought has finally broken, we’ve had over 3.6 inches of rain and yesterday’s was the hardest!  Bad thing though, far west Texas, which is still under, according to NOAA a severe drought, hasn’t gotten any significant rain.

Crossing the Colorado River and coming into Mills County I noticed the oak trees had neat piles of leaves under their boughs, I thought Oh-oh, sure looks like hail to me.  Driving on the 4 miles to my ranch, the last being almost 2 miles on a County Road, more leaves under the oak trees along with a scattering of good size, hail.  The ground in my front and back yards were covered with quarter size hail and it had built up around my gutters too.

Walking around my house and checking for damage, none apparent, and walking out to the rain gauge, ½ inch and thinking, That’s over 3 inches this month. There being no garden this year, like the Bible says, I let it lay fallow this season, nothing was harmed, but remembering back to the hail storm we had on May 5, 2005, it was a doozy!

The constant lightning cast an eerie green glow as the storm hit from the northwest at midnight and waking us up, we went out to the front porch to watch as it closed in on us. Between Goldthwaite and my front porch, a tornado cloud came snaking down and Layla and I went streaking into safer quarters.  This was one of several funnel clouds seen in the County, 2 touched down.  We climbed under a mattress and lied down in our long hall and it started raining and hailing, and hailing and hailing, our metal roof was clanking with the large pieces of ice!

Finally it stopped hailing, but the rain was pouring down, over 5 inches in total and, because of the rain, we went to bed, but were up with the sun.  We thought Bo, our cat, had been safe in the old house, Spike, our dog, was under the mattress with us, but on our inspection, the north facing windows had been knocked out with only jagged pieces remaining.  Somehow, Bo had escaped through a window and found shelter somewhere safe.

Our cars, a new Suburban and a year old, Avalanche, left outside of course, were damaged the worst, totaling over $8,000. Then add in $1,200. for 2 new double pane, windows in the old house, plus an almost destroyed garden, gives an idea of the destruction.  By far, wildlife was hit the hardest.  Doves were nesting and had to start all over, the big hail killed turkeys while they were roosting, smaller birds not killed outright had eggs and nests destroyed, but ground dwellers like quail, could find cover and were spared.

Now, the big storm of 2005 is just a memory, but Friday’s hail could be the answer to a lot of prayers and could be the breaking of our, according to NOAA, severe drought!

In early March of 2005, several months before I retired, I had planned to get an early start on a Saturday morning and drive to Goldthwaite and arrive before lunch. Living in Bayou Vista, Texas, right on the Gulf Coast, I had a 4 plus, hour drive awaiting me.

Setting my clock for 5:30 AM, I awoke with a start at 6:00 AM. I hadn’t turned “on” the alarm. So much for a real early start! Rushing and getting dressed I looked outside toward my boat dock and noticed that it was foggy, not unusual for this time of the year. Nothing to load up so I climbed into my 4WD, Suburban and headed out, but there was only about 200 yards visibility, not strange for this time of year.  Figuring that the farther I went inland, the lighter the fog would be, so I pressed on.

Heading north on I-45 the traffic, yes traffic at 6:20 AM on a Saturday was moving along about 45 MPH and the farther inland I drove, it seemed that the fog was getting thicker. Seventeen miles from downtown Houston, Beltway 8, a toll road, exits east and west. It is a high, elevated, curving, exit to the west and the fog almost, it seemed, enveloped the exit.  
Clicking on my blinkers, the traffic report that came on, every 20 minutes on weekends, instead of the 10 minutes on work days, reported heavy fog on Beltway 8 around Texas 288, The Nolan Ryan Expressway, 5 miles ahead. Slow going for a ways!

On the “Raceway”, or Beltway, posted speed is 65 MPH, which is ignored by most of the drivers.  Most motorist clip along at 75 or 80, but today, caution prevailed and we were down to 40 and nearing 288, traffic slowed dramatically, red lights glaring, hazard lights blinking and we entered a white world! The radio blared, “There has been a series of major accident on Beltway 8 between Hillcroft and Cullen, and reports from the scene say the Beltway is closed.”

Closed it was and the fog was so thick that I could barely make out the reflections of the taillights to my front. I have never seen, or even imagined, that fog could be so heavy! Behind me I heard a grinding CRASH, and braced for a hit that never came.

The sounds of more crashes echoed behind me, everything was stopped, so there was nothing to do but listen to the radio, that was now getting better reports from the authorities. The Beltway was closed both ways and at least 100 cars had been involved in a chain reaction accident on the inbound side and at least 1,000 cars were stuck and fogged in. Deaths and injuries were reported and the sight of the original crashes was still over a mile away!  
Sirens were blaring from every direction as police and sheriff’s officers begin to arrive all along the Beltway. They begin moving cars off of the Beltway and soon I was on the access road, still heading west, but stopped. We crept along enshrouded in fog and in some places it was so thick that it looked to be impenetrable.

After about an hour, the fog was lifting and we began to creep along side the scene of the most deadly accidents. Then, just like that, the fog lifted!  Cars were piled into each other and resembled accordions, reminding me of scenes from “The Highway Of Death” in Kuwait; some cars were upside down on the grades leading up the overpasses, with radiator fluid, gasoline and oil pooled on the road surface, people were milling around stunned and law officers were everywhere. We continued our creep for 600 or 700 yards and up ahead, in bright sunshine, I saw a DPS trooper directing us back on to the Beltway!

Since we were being herded along, we couldn’t get out of our vehicles to help. All I could do was say a prayer for those involved and thank the Lord that I was 15 minutes late. If I had been on time, I would have been right in the middle of it!

Final tally was 110, cars and trucks involved, with 7 deaths and a myriad of injured.  Skid marks still remain on the road surface and median attesting to the speed and violence of the crashes! 

Long ago, I learned never to plan any outdoor excursions in March!  

However, most of this month we’ve had beautiful weather and I thought we’d have an early spring.  That was dispelled this past Saturday when the winds really blew, thirty-five to forty miles per!  Then the temps dropped to below freezing, it rained and even snowed.  The weather cleared and by Sunday afternoon we were in shirt sleeves.

Monday was a workday and I’d planned to go varmint hunting Tuesday afternoon.  That is, until the wind blew me out, a steady eighteen to twenty with gusts higher.  I doubt if the varmints could even hear the call?

The long range, weather forecast for April 3rd, the opening of spring, turkey season is quite good, moderate temps and no rain.  I’ve been busy trying to get my work wrapped up because I need to scout for turkeys in the mornings, scare up a varmint in the late afternoon (or night) and then, pick a cloudy afternoon to try to tie into a big bass. That’s my plan.   We’ll see if I can implement it?