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2021 Rain Thread


South Austin

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29 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

So the low off SE TX sucked the big un toward it?   

I understand suck pretty well.    Just not necessarily when it comes to meteorology. 

 

We see systems on weather maps and think of them as solid entities or whatnot.  But in real life, they're air pressure gradients.  More like blobs.  Think of holding a long thin balloon with just a little of it inflated.  If you squeeze say on the right, the inflated blob moves left.  And vice-versa.  Many times that's what happens - one system just pushes the other along.  However they also attract each other - go through a revolving door and sometimes you feel the air blow by you.  Well lower air pressure can suck other low air pressure towards it because, well, the pressure is low and when they get close enough, the similarities in the air pressure allow one to pull the other in.

This low is moving by itself and isn't yet pulled into the coast.  But it will be when it moves close enough, and the two will merge (balloon illustration).   That coastal low combined with the momentum of the big one will cause them to draw to each other and re-form.

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59 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

We see systems on weather maps and think of them as solid entities or whatnot.  But in real life, they're air pressure gradients.  More like blobs.  Think of holding a long thin balloon with just a little of it inflated.  If you squeeze say on the right, the inflated blob moves left.  And vice-versa.  Many times that's what happens - one system just pushes the other along.  However they also attract each other - go through a revolving door and sometimes you feel the air blow by you.  Well lower air pressure can suck other low air pressure towards it because, well, the pressure is low and when they get close enough, the similarities in the air pressure allow one to pull the other in.

This low is moving by itself and isn't yet pulled into the coast.  But it will be when it moves close enough, and the two will merge (balloon illustration).   That coastal low combined with the momentum of the big one will cause them to draw to each other and re-form.

Ah.   It's what I get for not paying attention at your weather camp.   I blame Erika Lopez sitting next to me. 

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I still don't know what any of that means for Derkaville... my lingering question is when can we put this roof on with a safe margin of "not gonna destroy the inside of the house"?

 

I need to get this work moving forward ASAP... the only tiny benefit is that I'm in no different position than any other contractor, we are all locked down due to rain %'s.

This screenshot is from Weather Underground (brought to you by the Weather Channel):
image.png.f454403bc6742b195acd1d8533c75ee0.png
 

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21 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

Ah.   It's what I get for not paying attention at your weather camp.   I blame Erika Lopez sitting next to me. 

When I was actually studying meteorology (I was actually gonna be one), all the chicks looked like Janet Reno without makeup and when she just got up.

I quickly switched into music - where often the boys are as pretty as the girls (ooh, did I just say that?) but the girls were hot - if not psychotic, ice-pick-you-if-you-get-on-their-bad-side nutso.  But it was worth it.

Nowadays, meteos are pretty good looking (thank you, Weather Channel, despite your hysterics you brought us the hot weather chick).

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47 minutes ago, ROFL BOX said:

I still don't know what any of that means for Derkaville... my lingering question is when can we put this roof on with a safe margin of "not gonna destroy the inside of the house"?

 

I need to get this work moving forward ASAP... the only tiny benefit is that I'm in no different position than any other contractor, we are all locked down due to rain %'s.

This screenshot is from Weather Underground (brought to you by the Weather Channel):
image.png.f454403bc6742b195acd1d8533c75ee0.png
 

I've got an appointment with the Llano river in 10 days.  This crap needs to move on out of here.

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3 hours ago, NorthLoop said:

Had a ridiculous rolling thunder at about 4am that shook the house and woke everybody up. Lasted a good 20-30 seconds. Checked the radar, and there was nothing within 100 miles of me (though I could see lightning flashes in the window). 

What causes that? Sound reverb due to cloud cover and fog? Or was Godzilla emerging from the Guadalupe? 

I'm not saying this is the cause of what you experienced, but there is a phenomenon called "temperature inversion" that leads to sound waves refracting back down towards the earth, as opposed to bending upwards to the heavens.  When a temperature inversion sets up (basically, the air gets warmer as one goes upward), sound can "travel" very long distances at ground level.  It most often happens at night and with heavy cloud cover.

Hey to Dr. Blackstock, who taught me a shit-ton about acoustics that my increasingly feeble brain has begun to forget.

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16 minutes ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Here's a weather question for y'all.
There have been spectacular storm pics out of west Texas / panhandle this past week. 
Why are the storms up there easier to see / photograph?  It seems like they are smaller stand alone storms that blow up?

Because there is nothing in the way. 

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31 minutes ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Here's a weather question for y'all.
There have been spectacular storm pics out of west Texas / panhandle this past week. 
Why are the storms up there easier to see / photograph?  It seems like they are smaller stand alone storms that blow up?

 

14 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Because there is nothing in the way. 

Very true, I would venture to guess a couple of other points: 1) there were a shit load of storm chasers up there taking pictures with high quality cameras and 2) I think that the generally drier air makes for greater contrasts between the thunderheads and the clear skies surrounding them.

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38 minutes ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Here's a weather question for y'all.
There have been spectacular storm pics out of west Texas / panhandle this past week. 
Why are the storms up there easier to see / photograph?  It seems like they are smaller stand alone storms that blow up?

All of these amazing pics you keep seeing on twitter have absolutely had their color photoshopped. They're still great pics, but yeah it didn't really look like that. 

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53 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm not saying this is the cause of what you experienced, but there is a phenomenon called "temperature inversion" that leads to sound waves refracting back down towards the earth, as opposed to bending upwards to the heavens.  When a temperature inversion sets up (basically, the air gets warmer as one goes upward), sound can "travel" very long distances at ground level.  It most often happens at night and with heavy cloud cover.

Hey to Dr. Blackstock, who taught me a shit-ton about acoustics that my increasingly feeble brain has begun to forget.

That would make sense as it was pretty cool outside last night. As I type this right now I'm hearing loud rolling thunder and the closest yellow to me (NB) on the radar is down by Karnes City.  

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1 minute ago, Orange&White said:

Don't you live in LA?

If these storms hit there they would have names and would be national news.

Yep.  Was in LA when the remnants of a tropical system actually came ashore and kicked off some real-deal SOCAL thunderstorms.....it was round-the-clock coverage, with stories about people experiencing - GASP - roof leaks, because the rain was heavy!

It was a regular spring rain event to us.  In LA, it was the weather story of the year.

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29 minutes ago, Machinator said:

Chances that we get baseball at the Disch tomorrow? @phdhorn

Tomorrow looks like spotted rain.  Only thing that will hold up baseball is there is still a decent chance for lightning in the area.  And WVU has a hard stop tomorrow night around 10/11pm to get outta dodge.

Weird thing though is Women's Softball announced their broadcast window against Texas State in the regional winner's bracket.  For 1:00pm.  On the LHN.  And WVU @ TEX is slated for that same channel at 2:30pm.  

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Update:

While I'm here, might as well throw in.  Pretty interesting last few days.  That big low that was going to have us pair animals up by twos or sevens (yes, sevens, it's in Genesis (7:2), after missing us pretty much to the east, was going to move down to the coast and merge.  However, the coastal low that formed got pretty strong and kind of zapped the other low (which was just W of DFW) and it fizzled out completely.  A little unusual.  Anyway as you've seen, the low developed some extra-tropical characteristics but came in before it could ramp up.  Consequently not only does it have little wind, but not all that much rain as semitropical systems go.

Nevertheless, it's pulling in a lot of moisture from the Gulf) and is tracking up 37.  Eventually it'll park out west, maybe somewhere in Mexico SW of Laredo or whatnot.  But now Austin will be on the NE side of it - usually the rainiest.  However, the triggering mechanisms for this system are fairly week and it'll fizzle out too within about 2-3 days.

But while it's out there, it'll act tropical - that is, brief periods of various intensities of rain, mostly 5-10 minute showers through today and tomorrow.  Not enough to wipe out everything, but definitely put a dent in it.  And one update - Sunday now looks to be a little rainier than Saturday, although both should provide at least a few rounds of showers for most of CenTex.

If you have plans outdoors today, you'll get wet, but not enough to go home(?).  I think the rains will taper off after sunset before getting going again Sunday.  The biggest risk of course for an event-cancelling rain is daytime heating, about 3-6 p.m.  But I still think 90% of what you might do outdoors today is doable, if not completely dry.  We'll see.

Next week we finally say goodbye to this wonderfully cool May and begin our march into the low 90's.  Where it goes from there say first week of June - will the summer start frying now, or like the past few years, wait until mid-July to radiate us - will have to be determined.

tl;dr:  Saturday brief periods of mostly moderate but 1-2 heavy showers through about dinner, not a washout but a wet day.  Sunday more of the same, even a little more possibly.  Monday → near-normal temps, which are of course 90°+.  Remember this month fondly, you're gonna need it.

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Right now we're under a nice band of rain, but the storm will move NW and I think later today the rain will taper off a bit.  Hope so, I got a graduate to cheer on tonight in DKR!

Edit:  I'll also tell you this - this thing is packing a little more punch than expected.  Some nice 20-25 mph gusts in the band outside my crib right now - about 120 miles from the storm center.  

Also reminds me of some of the talk we've had in the past on this - if this storm moved into where it is now, and was like a Rita (which was headed for this exact same path until it made a hard right off the coast), these winds would be 90-100 mph right now.

Austin is anything but hurricane-proof.

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3 minutes ago, South Austin said:

If it rains during Memorial Day Weekend, we’re all holding phd responsible.

This is supposed to be one of the few in the last 20 years or so that no rain at all is forecast.  Yeah, right.  But it's looking like it.
If you hold me responsible, I'll take it.  Because any rain after May 15 is great.

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