Dose of heavy rain helps ease recent dry spell
Central Texas will spend the next few days drying out from a mini-deluge Wednesday, when a series of fierce storms marched up the Interstate35 corridor and dropped nearly 6 inches of rain in some areas.
The rains began sporadically late Tuesday before a boisterous collection of thunderstorms began to organize into a wide band running northeastward along the length of I-35 from Pleasanton to north of Georgetown, with the urban centers that dot the highway directly in its path.
Starting about 1:10 a.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service began alerting Austin-area resi- dents about the heavy rain and hail from the storms and their dangerously frequent cloud-toground lightning. By 4 a.m., when the weather service issueda flash flood warning for Hays and Travis counties as well as southern Williamson County, at least 3 inches of rain had already fallen in some parts of eastern Travis County. After a brief respite around 9 a.m., Austin got hit with another round of heavy storms.
The Austin-Bergstrom Inter- national Airport set a rainfall record for March 28, reporting 5.55 inches, overwhelmingly surpassing the previous record of 1.86 inches set in 2006.
Before the predawn soaking, Austin’s main weather station at Camp Mabry had recorded about 2.45 inches of rain for the year since Jan. 1. But by 7 a.m. Wednesday, practically the same amount of rain — 2.48 inches — had fallen there in less seven hours. Mabry ultimately recorded 3.2 inches of rain Wednesday, coming within 0.06 inch of matching the March 28 record there, also set in 2006.
Some of the Austin area’s heaviest rainfall totals Wednesday, as recorded by the Lower Col--
orado River Authority and the National Weather Service, included:
5.72 inches along the Blanco River south of Kyle in Hays County.
5.67 inches along Onion Creek at U.S. 183 in Travis County.
4.95 inches southwest of the Austin-Bergstrom airport.
4.53 inches near Elgin in northern Bastrop County.
4.30 inches near Taylor in southeast Williamson County.
2.56 inches just east of the San Marcos Regional Airport, over the Caldwell County line.
Wednesday’s rains could help snap a dry spell in Central Texas. Data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a consortium of government and academic researchers, showed nearly 75 percent of the state experiencing some degree of drought last week. Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties faced moderate to severe drought. Under such conditions, some crop or pasture losses occur, streams and wells are bone dry, and residents face tougher water restrictions.
Heavy rain benefited thirsty fields and lawns, but it arrived with dangerously high winds and pellets of hail reported in Bexar and Comal counties. A resident near Luling in Caldwell County — where a tornado warning was briefly issued overnight — reported winds ripping the roof off the carport near his mobile home. In Bexar County, the weather service reported pea-sized hail pelting the Alamo on Wednesday morning.
The most widespread problems from the storms, though, was on the region’s roads, where excessive runoff flooded low-lying portions. As of 4 p.m., ATXfloods.com reported at least 175 low water crossings throughout Central Texas were closed, largely clustered near Kyle in eastern Hays County and northwestern Caldwell County, as well in the northeastern corner of Travis County. More than 20 crossings remained closed in Bastrop County, mostly around Smithville.
Although as many as 1,390 Austin Energy customers lost power, according to the utility’s online outage map, less than 30 were still without electricity by Wednesday afternoon.
The storms, which had moved east by Wednesday afternoon, were causing delays among departing flights of up to an hour and 15 minutes at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport as of 3:30 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center.
The weather service expects unabated sunshine on Thursday as daytime temperatures climb to a high of 85 degrees — a prelude to a sunnier weekend with unseasonably warm weather. The light southwest winds will give way to cooler north winds Thursday evening, when temperatures settle into the 50s overnight, forecasters said.