Drought Conditions Continue

[Siskiyou]

Texas Fires: 4  Acres: 15,461 New fires: 6  Fires contained: 4 
 
NEW Union Hill 2 (Texas Forest Service): 300 acres at 10 percent contained. This fire is three miles southwest of Baird. Residences and outbuildings are threatened. 
NEW Arabella (Texas Forest Service): 750 acres at 80 percent contained. This fire is six miles northwest of Fort Davis. Multiple residences are threatened. 
Winter Texas Fires 2008 (Texas Forest Service): 14,111 acres at 75 percent contained. This complex of fires is burning in multiple counties throughout west Texas.
NEW Field Ranch (Texas Forest Service): 300 acres at 70 percent contained. This fire is seven miles southwest of Bracketville. 
Rockin Robin (Texas Forest Service): This fire was contained at 400 acres. 
NEW Crawford (Texas Forest Service): This fire was contained at 300 acres. 
NEW Shay (Texas Forest Service): This fire was contained at 500 acres. 
NEW Sanders (Texas Forest Service): This fire was contained at 700 acres. 

Texas has had it's share of fire this year.  A number of them have dropped off the list and more are being added each day.

Of course this does not count the small starts that are contain quickly.
 

[Mohawk]

  That's just the nature of things here in Texas. Lately, we are slightly above annual rainfall for the year here in the Hill Country. Most of west Texas has never received all that much rainfall, i.e. Desert Mule Deer, Desert Bighorn Sheep, Desert Cottontail Rabbit, etc.

[CyberSniper]

Got another 1.5 inches of rain in the last week or so north of Hondo.
The general area looks more normal at the moment, but the drought
is not over by any means. Now, the long range forecast calls for a hot
dry summer. Oh well........
I'm pretty sure San Antonio will see water restrictions in the near future again.

[CyberSniper]

Here's another update of recent conditions:

JANUARY TO JUNE 2008 WAS THE DRIEST SUCH PERIOD AT SAN ANTONIO...
WITH 3.94 INCHES OF RAIN. THE DRIEST JANUARY TO JUNE PERIODS FROM
1871 TO 2008 FOLLOWS.

SAN ANTONIO DRIEST JANUARY TO JUNE PERIODS 1871 TO 2008

1. 2008 3.94
2. 1925 4.20
3. 1917 5.20

SEPTEMBER 2007 TO JUNE 2008 WAS THE DRIEST SUCH PERIOD AT
SAN ANTONIO...WITH 6.58 INCHES OF RAIN.  THE DRIEST SEPTEMBER
TO JUNE PERIODS FROM 1871 TO 2008 AT SAN ANTONIO FOLLOWS.

 1. SEPTEMBER 2007 TO JUNE 2008  6.58
 2. SEPTEMBER 1955 TO JUNE 1956  9.16
 3. SEPTEMBER 1966 TO JUNE 1967  9.69

The rainfall totals north of Hondo were no better than what's seen above.
Might have been worse in fact.
We finally got a 2 inch rain north of Hondo just a few days ago.

[CyberSniper]

Hurricane Dolly dropped 1.75 inches in the area north of Hondo a couple
of days ago. We've only had three decent rains so far this year in northern
Medina county. Along Hwy 90 in Hondo, it's been better than that though.

[Ponydog]

how did they do west and South of you ?    Zavala county is dry as toast....just wonderd if it got a good soaking from Dolly as well???

[CyberSniper]

I know a guy north of Uvalde ( off Hwy 83 ) about 14 miles.
He only got 1/2 inch.
Dolly tracked from just north of Brownsville over towards Laredo.
I don't have detailed information, but I am pretty sure that whole area
got some rain out of the system.
There was flooding on both sides of the border.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/07/24/dolly/index.html
" At 1 p.m. CT (2 p.m. ET) Thursday, Dolly's winds had weakened to 40 mph, and the center of the storm was over the U.S.-Mexico border, about 30 miles northwest of Laredo, Texas. Dolly had picked up a little speed and was moving at about 13 mph, the hurricane center said."

Track of the storm here:
http://www.noaawatch.gov/2008/dolly_lg.gif

[Ponydog]

Our place is about 35 miles south of Uvalde........so maybe south is better...closer to the storm traCK...maybe

[oldandslow]

Ya'll want to see dry? Come on up on the South Plains. Talked to the guy who farms my dryland cotton patch week before last and he said it hadn't rained .8" total this year on my place. No cotton crop for three years in a row now. No milo this year either, just a total bust.
 

[Ponydog]

I guess groundwater is way deep there...is there is a reachable water table.....no wells drilled in to irrigate through a power unit

[oldandslow]

Actually the water is pretty shallow when you can find it. We had two wells when I was growing up there. One was 42' deep and the other 36'. Both were undrinkable and tasted terrible. If you drank the water for a few days it would make you sick. It's stream water and you might hit water and drill 20' away and not get anything. Most of it is very weak, just a few gallons a minute. On the place north of me is an irregation well and a circle system. It's several miles west to another decent well.

[CyberSniper]

We got 1 and 1/8th inches of rain today north of Hondo.
That's rain #4 for the year.
Maybe not as bad as the south plains, but sure not great either.

[CyberSniper]

Wow ! In the last couple of days, no less than 4 inches of rain fell out
north of Hondo. I got 3 inches here in NE San Antonio in as many hours also.
Added to the rain early in the month, it now looks like more rain fell in August
than the rest of the year added up. Strange...
14 miles north of Uvalde off Hwy 83, they got 2.5 inches of rain.

[Ponydog]

That sounds pretty good Cybersniper........hope that rain also dumped on Zavala County ........La Pryor towards Piedras Negras........that stretch along Hwy 57 ....( since that is where our little piece of Texas is....)

[Ponydog]

Sounds like we got about 1.6 inches.......so the place might green up a bit .....and I hope the rains keep coming.....maybe another inch or two tghis month and next...would make a world of difference...

[CyberSniper]

Deep south Texas got even more. Roma ( near Harlingen ) got 13 inches out of
this. Bad flooding there now of course.

[CyberSniper]

Since my last post on 19 August, things have improved.
Anywhere from 4, to over 8 inches of rain has fallen
in the areas west of San Antonio.
I hope it stays this way for a while.

[CyberSniper]

Since August, very little additional rain has fallen in north Central Medina county.
Total rain this year around 18 inches, 6 inches of that having fallen
in August.