Carol,

I'm back! It is the same there with the weather radio going bonkers with a steady stream of warnings for counties to our west, northwest and north. The radar is lit up too.

Sometimes T-storms bring rain. Other times they do not. Those dry thunderstorms often have cloud-to-ground lightning that starts fires in very dry areas. At a time like that, if the storms are bringing you fire instead of rain, it is just the most frustrating thing on earth, because of course it happens in very dry, parched areas that desperately need rain.

I checked the OK Mesonet rainfall map when I got back from the fire and was surprised how little rain has fallen!

I'm going to link the WFAA radar since it gives everyone a 'backup' radar to view if their local one gets knocked out by the weather.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Radar View of the Storms

Carol,

I've been watching the radar and listening to NOAA Weather Radio, and I wonder if the Mesonet has data transmission or programming issues.

I cannot imagine the rainfall totals you and I are looking at right now are correct. I think maybe the rainfall is not showing up now on the Mesonet but will show up later. It seems inconceivable that all these storms are not dropping more rain.

Our weather radio is going off nonstop. Some of these storms MUST have rain even though it isn't showing up!

According to The Weather Channel, St. Louis has a major tornado issue.

Dawn

Carole, I was gonna be jealous...but if you aren't getting rain, you definitely have my sympathy!

Stay safe.

Lisa

Lisa, Thanks, but I don't need the rain or your sympathy this time. LOL My tomato plants are floating.

You need to teach those little mater plants how to swim!

We saw the weirdest looking clouds tonight. Looked like bubbles. I've never seen anything like it. Looked it up and they are Mammatus clouds. They are apparently indicators of a particulary strong storm or even a tornadic storm according to Wiki. I'm attaching a link in case anyone is interested.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mammatus Cloud

Dawn, If the Mesonet is reporting correctly, Cotton County has over five inches of rain in the last few hours. That is hard to imagine in Cotton County.

I haven't been able to get outside, yet, this morning. Been raining too much. From what I could tell it rained much of the night here in Tahlequah. Thursday's rain accumulated about an inch. Seemed like more. But that's what the rain gauge said. Last night we had a funnel cloud about a mile from our home and, I hear, another over by Hulbert.

We sure needed this rain.

George

Adellabedella, I love mammatus clouds and think they are the coolest-looking thing. We see them a lot down here along the Red River on severe T-storm type days. If I am in the garden and see them magically 'appearing' in the sky, I drop what I am doing and flip my fire radio over to the NOAA weather channel to listen to it for a while. If I see rapid T-storm development off to our west, south or southwest plus mammatus clouds, I go inside to check the NWS website and the radar.

When you watch the weather closely, you soon learn which clouds are a cause for concern and which are not. Sometimes my storm spotter DH comes outside looks at the clouds and tries to drag my inside the house or at least voices his concern that I "should" come inside.

Carol, I am sure they got all that rain. I watched their storms on radar all night long. After I attempted to go to sleep, the weather radio went off every 15 minutes for one of the storms out west. All I could think of was that I'd surely be celebrating the great rainfall if I lived there! They've been so dry for so long. And, no, our weather radio isn't set for that county because it is so far west, but it is set for counties closer to it, like Montague County in TX, and Jefferson, Carter and Garvin Counties in OK. A lot of the storms that were hitting Cotton County were eventually brushing parts of the counties we do have programmed into the radio, so the thing kept going off. I didn't sleep much and was tempted to turn the darn thing off but would never do that for safety reasons, of course.

George, I'm glad you got rain. Y'all sure did need it. That's a bit too close for a funnel cloud though!

Dawn

Dawn, You have the same weather radio problem that I have. I want to hear the forecast for the counties that border mine, but that includes Missouri and Arkansas in my case. Although the storms usually come from the SW, once they leave our county and the Tulsa warnings are over (OR NOT), I start getting the Springfield warnings for the neighboring counties in Missouri.

We made it through the day with only a few sprinkles, but we still had watches and warnings. When it was time to sleep, I couldn't sleep, and by the time I could have slept the morning storms hit and the radios were going off constantly. I was awake all night and finally got to sleep at 7:15 this morning while the rain was pouring down, but the dangerous part of the storm appeared to have passed. We received an additional 1 and 1/4 inches of rainfall in the early morning hours.

Well at least we have a new color on our map today. Much of eastern Oklahoma is now green since we are under a Flash Flood Watch.

Dawn, I think I told you that I planted 2 kinds of beans and was afraid they were going to rot in the ground. At least one type is doing fine now. They are the ones that I grew out ONLY for seed last year, so I am glad to see those back. I got the original beans from George and they have a name as long as my arm, but includes "greasy" my favorite kind. The others are Romano Pole which I have never grown before. I have grown the bush type years ago, but I had just enough seed for one tower so I hope they are just slow to germinate and will still show up.

I feel like I can stand in my back door and watch the south end of the garden growing, but I need to throw a life preserver to the north end. LOL

I noticed y'all were green today.

Tonight we are red, orange, yellow and green and have all kinds of hail all around us although nothing has fallen on our property. We're having one severe storm after another but the strongest hail and rain are missing us so far and we have had a nice gentle rain that so far only amounts to 2/10s of an inch. No doubt we'll have rain on and off throughout the night so I bet we end up with a decent rainfall amount, though not flooding type rain by any means.

I'm glad to hear your beans are surviving the abundant moisture. I'm just hoping the hail misses mine. I checked my soil today and it was fairly dry so this rain is perfectly timed. We aren't getting a lot of rain at any given time, but just enough little bits here and there to keep us hanging on.

Your garden needs a built-in dryer so you can push a button and dry out that wet soil.

I think I kind of 'shot myself in the foot' on the drainage thing. It once drained better than it does now. Not only do I have the french drain thing going on but I have some raised beds that have interfered a little. I can make some changes that will help things, but not until it drys out a litle. We have had 2 5/8 inches at my house in the last two days and we didn't need any. We have standing water in yards and streets. Of course, everything slants toward the lake, but in our case the closest route to the lake is higher so it has to work it's way through the neighborhood and down to the dock area. The neighbors are mostly willing to improve the drainage situation of the entire neighborhood, but there are so many underground wires that it is a challenge to dig anywhere. When they come to mark the lines it just looks like a child played with orange paint.

Dawn thanks for the cloud terminology I was looking for after seeing that spectacular sky ... here are couple of pics of "mammatus clouds". Priya and I were really amazed see such clouds, as we never head about them before or saw such sky.

Cool! I've seen those a few times but didn't know what they were called. Mammatus. Mammal clouds? Clouds that look like Mammary glands?