March 3, 2008 - Texas Facts #15: State Weather
NOTICE: Be forewarned, I tend to over exaggerate on this topic. Take most of my words with a grain of salt (on this particular post, not all the time ;-).
The normal weather in Texas is… unexpected, all seasons. In general though you can expect winter to be mild, spring to be early, summer to be hot, and fall to be late. But to explain further the spontaneity of the strange weather around here I’ll tell you a couple stories.
First, there was that freakish storm in late spring of 2000. It had been drizzling off and on all morning; a very bleak, dull day was all we expected. Then around 2 in the afternoon the sky took on a rather ominous look. 2:30 came and my Mom was getting seriously worried. We watched a girl about my age after school and the bus was supposed to be there around 3. My Mom was at the door, wind howling and rain, um, raining hard when the sky turned a sickly greenish gray; it almost completely stopped raining and the pressure dropped. She rushed my sisters and I into the hall closest and ran back to the door to wait for the bus. It seemed like ages at the time but only 10 or 15 minutes had gone by before the serious danger had passed. Mom was so relieved when she saw the school bus drive around the corner at about 3:30. A little later Dad got home and told us how he had literally driven under the swirling clouds of an early tornado formation. Well, it kept raining and raining and before we went to bed we all went outside to see the “pond”. What used to be a nice little fishing pond, no more than a hundred yards across (I think) was all the way up to our backyard and had become the size of a lake that was full of rushing water.
Now the thing about this storm is that, as far as I know, no one ever saw it coming that morning, not even my Dad (a rarity).
On a lighter note, there was the Victoria miracle in 2006. It was December 24th during an average winter: cold, bleak, nothing overly exciting about it. But for the residents in Victoria and the surrounding towns, a miracle was about to occur. That night was full of excitement for most people in Texas, but the morning of the 25th was especially special for that small area. They woke up to the most beautiful white Christmas probably many of them had ever seen, for a most it was first.
While this was somewhat predicted, tell me, have you ever heard of snow in south Texas? All we got that winter was some sneet, and that was in central Texas! And for goodness’ sake, how on earth did the snow know to fall right before Christmas? It was truly a Christmas miracle.
Then of course there’s the rain “issue”. The weathermen have a hard time getting’ it right (even though my Dad usually does). Some years it’s super dry, like 2006 when our area was in drought stages. And then just last year, 2007, it was like the rain knew it should play catch up so we had rain, rain, rain and more rain! Texas weather is often quite unpredictable.
But I do love living here. My favorite season is summer. Many people (including those I know) complain about the heat, they just can’t wait ‘till fall comes and then even better, winter. But I prefer the heat and I just freeze in the cold. I know what I said earlier but I honestly think I could live without snow my whole life. Who needs gray, snowy days when you can have beautiful, bright, sunshiny days? Hm? Only real drag for me is that I have very light skin that burns easily and the sun can bake one pretty bad in a typical Texas summer (about which the only real typical aspect is that it’s hot and the sun is usually out).
We loved telling our friends in Germany how hot it gets here in Texas. They were always so surprised, they had such a hard time believing it could be that warm the majority of the year! The “Average Annual Precipitation” for the area of Texas in which we live is 30-34 inches. Texas is just too big for a true, overall average. Here are the monthly averages for Austin, Tx (I couldn’t copy and paste the chart so I just linked it).
Do I like my state’s weather? I LOVE Texas’ weather! Its unpredictability makes it so exciting, and I really do prefer the warmness of it. And before I get off the topic of weather I must say what I’ve said many times before, my Dad shoulda been a meteorologist. You know, he’s the only person my family, my friends, and I know who actually predicted correctly where hurricane Katrina would hit. No other weather guy I heard got it right. How’s that fer ya’?
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April 1, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by GraceElizabeth
