Quote:Look east, California.

Five years of extreme drought have come to a dramatic end in Texas and Oklahoma as a month of heavy rains has replenished reservoirs, dampened parched soil across both states and unleashed floodwaters on vulnerable residents.

A downpour this weekend pushed rivers far over their banks in central Texas, where flooding devoured hundreds of rural homes between Austin and San Antonio. At least 2,000 people fled to emergency shelter as helicopters rescued residents from rooftops and bridges snapped apart like Graham crackers. At least one person was dead and three others were missing as of Sunday afternoon.

...Sunday's flooding in Texas was especially dramatic in the town of Wimberley, population 2,582, where Hays County officials estimated more than 350 homes have been destroyed.

The Blanco River rose from about 5 feet at 10 p.m. Saturday to more than 40 feet at 1 a.m., well past its record high of 33 feet, according to National Weather Service river data.

Quote:The Texas flooding comes after months of wetter-than-normal weather and less than a week after officials logged an absence of extreme drought in any part of Texas or Oklahoma for the first time in five years.

The category "extreme drought" means that officials expect major crop and pasture losses along with widespread water shortages or restrictions.

At the peak of Texas' brutal drought in 2011 — which drew comparisons to the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression — 97% of the state was under extreme drought or worse. A year ago, it was 40%.

Now, it's 0%. The figures in Oklahoma are similar.

That's compared with 67% of California under extreme drought or worse right now.

Quote:Lake Travis (big lake near Austin) storage is up 200,000 acre feet in the last week. That's about a 65 billion gallon increase.

Quote:The nonstop Texas-Oklahoma rains are probably being influenced by a building El Niño in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, whose warm waters tend to bring rain to the southern U.S., said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

If a full-blown El Niño develops, that could mean rain for Southern California next winter, and it could mean trouble too, he said.

"The headlines that you're writing today about Texas and Oklahoma, you could be writing about California in January," Patzert said. "There's something to remember about El Niño — he's a good boy and he's a bad boy because he can deliver drought relief that's much-needed. But all that water coming so fast is like trying to catch water out of a fire hose with a champagne glass."

He also cautioned Californians against putting too much hope in El Niño to end the state's drought.

"Everybody is thinking of El Niño as the great wet hope, as the great drought buster," he said. "The building El Niño is having some impact on the heavy weather we're seeing in Oklahoma and Texas, but we're a long way from seeing the equivalent rains in California next winter."

(05-25-2015, 06:00 PM)Miguel Wrote: The ground is saturated because we've had good solid rains for a month, that makes flooding more likely.

Quote:The nonstop Texas-Oklahoma rains are probably being influenced by a building El Niño in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, whose warm waters tend to bring rain to the southern U.S., said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

If a full-blown El Niño develops, that could mean rain for Southern California next winter, and it could mean trouble too, he said.

"The headlines that you're writing today about Texas and Oklahoma, you could be writing about California in January," Patzert said. "There's something to remember about El Niño — he's a good boy and he's a bad boy because he can deliver drought relief that's much-needed. But all that water coming so fast is like trying to catch water out of a fire hose with a champagne glass."

He also cautioned Californians against putting too much hope in El Niño to end the state's drought.

"Everybody is thinking of El Niño as the great wet hope, as the great drought buster," he said. "The building El Niño is having some impact on the heavy weather we're seeing in Oklahoma and Texas, but we're a long way from seeing the equivalent rains in California next winter."

Quote:The elder McComb said his son became separated from the rest of the families after the house was knocked off its foundation. The home, with people still inside, floated precariously down a river. The house struck a bridge, and began to disintegrate as it continued to move, he said.

Quote:"We're in a house floating down the river, I'm with the children, call mom, and pray for us."

(05-26-2015, 06:36 PM)Miguel Wrote: This is kind of neat. It's aerial footage of the Trinity River in Dallas shot by a drone. The Trinity is normally a narrow channel that runs along the trees you see in the video, surrounded by a grassy areas on both sides. There are earthen levees to contain floodwaters.



This weekend the river was at the 40-ft flood stage and people came out to see it. The bridge with the people on it was an old roadway that was converted to a pedestrian bridge when they built the way-overpriced signature bridge next to it. There are plans to spend a billion dollars to convert the area around the river below into a major park

The plans include a controversial toll road inside the levee on the side closest to downtown Dallas. It's controversial because people voted for the park only to learn about the road afterwords, and they don't want an expressway near the park.

In other weather-related news, Houston was hit hard yesterday. They had 11 inches of rain overnight, which caused major flooding.