Mark P Betts
Spring Storms
If you follow my photostream and comments, you will know that Spring has already splashed over the Brazos Valley of Texas. Even the Mesquite and Retama trees are leafing out and they always are about 2 to 3 weeks later than all the other plants to flower.
Spring also brings violent weather in the Southern Plains of the United States. Like the ice extent in the Arctic which is at its maximum right now, the Tropopause which is the boundary between the Troposphere and the Stratosphere is at its highest now. This means that thunderstorms can soar to amazing heights. It is common for storms to build up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) and higher during early spring.
These extremely tall thunderstorms can produce drenching rains, continuous lightning, hail, violent downbursts, and if the conditions are just right, tornadoes.
We had our first taste of springtime violent weather over the past two days. A slow moving low pressure area in the upper atmosphere meandered over the area and spawned wave after wave of thunderstorms as high velocity streaks rotated around the southern edge of the upper level low. Each velocity streak added lift to the atmosphere that initiated another round of thunderstorms. The result was that we received 5.18 inches of rain (13.16 cm) in 48 hours.
This is the runoff cascading over the falls near my house. Three inches of rain had just dumped on our area. The flow would have been much more during the night after two more inches had fallen.
Unfortunately, the water is carrying more sediment than is normal (the brownish tinge in the water) due to the new construction that is popping up in the watershed. This will decrease in the future when the construction is finished and the landscaping has had a chance to become established.
This is an intermediate sized flood; still not as much as we saw during Hurricane Harvey last summer.
This area depends on these spring rains to keep the soil moisture high going into the summer. The Post Oaks which are the climax forest here, pump huge amounts of water out of the soil during the summer as they cope with the fierce heat stress. These spring rains will allow them to survive through the high stress times especially if we get some summer monsoon rains.
D0A9307
Spring Storms
If you follow my photostream and comments, you will know that Spring has already splashed over the Brazos Valley of Texas. Even the Mesquite and Retama trees are leafing out and they always are about 2 to 3 weeks later than all the other plants to flower.
Spring also brings violent weather in the Southern Plains of the United States. Like the ice extent in the Arctic which is at its maximum right now, the Tropopause which is the boundary between the Troposphere and the Stratosphere is at its highest now. This means that thunderstorms can soar to amazing heights. It is common for storms to build up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) and higher during early spring.
These extremely tall thunderstorms can produce drenching rains, continuous lightning, hail, violent downbursts, and if the conditions are just right, tornadoes.
We had our first taste of springtime violent weather over the past two days. A slow moving low pressure area in the upper atmosphere meandered over the area and spawned wave after wave of thunderstorms as high velocity streaks rotated around the southern edge of the upper level low. Each velocity streak added lift to the atmosphere that initiated another round of thunderstorms. The result was that we received 5.18 inches of rain (13.16 cm) in 48 hours.
This is the runoff cascading over the falls near my house. Three inches of rain had just dumped on our area. The flow would have been much more during the night after two more inches had fallen.
Unfortunately, the water is carrying more sediment than is normal (the brownish tinge in the water) due to the new construction that is popping up in the watershed. This will decrease in the future when the construction is finished and the landscaping has had a chance to become established.
This is an intermediate sized flood; still not as much as we saw during Hurricane Harvey last summer.
This area depends on these spring rains to keep the soil moisture high going into the summer. The Post Oaks which are the climax forest here, pump huge amounts of water out of the soil during the summer as they cope with the fierce heat stress. These spring rains will allow them to survive through the high stress times especially if we get some summer monsoon rains.
D0A9307