Scott,
Wish you and Dawn would share some with us. LOL. Hope you all escape the bad weather. We had some wind here yesterday evening and night as the front moved through but calm this morning and cloudy. One thing about this weather has allowed me to catch up some getting my garden out. And most things are germinating so starting to look good. Sure we will get our share of the bad weather soon so enjoying and knocking on wood while I can. Jay

Intellicast put the height of the two storms that went around Dawn at 65000 and 70000 ft tall. I don't ever recall seeing one as tall as the 70s before and only a handful in the 60s on the Intellicast map since I started using it 10 years ago. Unless they changed the way they estimate the storm height, that area got some of the biggest hail in a long time.

Scott and Jay, You cannot even imagine what it was like here. I couldn't tell y'all about it last night because some combination of wind, hail and rain took out our internet service provider's Ringling and Marietta towers and we lost service.

THE STATS: 70 mph wind, small hail here but up to baseball sized elsewhere in the area, 2.5" of rain in 25 minutes

THE DETAILS:

THE STORM BEGINS BUILDING: I had watched the clouds begin building around 7 p.m. and they kept getting taller and taller and taller until it was too dark to see them. At the time I was watching them, they might have been 40,000 to 50,000 tall. I have seen at least one storm build up as tall as last night's, and that storm caused an F-3 tornado to our southeast about 20 miles from us in Texas that night a couple of years ago.

As I watched the clouds begin building, our sky took on that grayish-green cast that often accompanies hail. I secured all the lawn furniture, made sure all the animals were inside their housing and the doors were securely closed so they couldn't blow open, etc. I even got out flashlights and candles in case we lost power.

BETWEEN ABOUT 7-8 PM: To our northwest, in the Lone Grove-Ardmore area, one cell reportedly had golf ball and larger sized hail, winds of at least 70 mph, and heavy rain that caused flash flooding. That storm also had a mid-level, non-rotating wall cloud. When it hit Love County, we had winds around 70 mph, non-stop lightning that gave a strobe-light effect for 2 or 3 hours (the lightning preceded the rain by a couple of hours), zero visability that caused drivers to stop in their tracks and sit there, unmoving in roadways because they couldn't see the road, trees down, hail, etc. During this storm our internet service went out because they "lost" the use of their towers in Ringling and Marietta.

BETWEEN 7-9 PM: To our southwest, just over the river in Montague County, Texas, we had two separate storms about 1 hour apart with rotation that did not, as far as I know, result in a tornado touchdown. That hail was in the tennis ball to baseball size category.

BETWEEN 7 PM AND MIDNIGHT: Here in the middle we had ugly skies and almost total stillness for a long, long time in between those two storm cells....the kind of stillness that scares you because you know it precedes a very violent storm. We had that strobe-light lightning (horizontal, not vertical) for a couple of hours and sporadic thunder. The air was totally still. We had storm chasers from other areas come into our county and stage themselves in various places. Some of them were feeding their own weather info to our undersherriff and he was passing it on to us on the fire/police radio channel.

When the storm arrived, it was like someone flipped a switch. The wind went from almost 0 to at least 70 in just a few minutes. The wind just roared. The rain poured. We got 2.5" of rain in about 25 minutes. It was the heaviest, most rapid rainfall I've ever seen in my life. Luckily for us, the big hail had stayed on either side of us and our hail was only about pea-sized.

The rain was heaviest in the northern and eastern parts of the county and I have no idea how much they received. Here at our house, though, we had that 2.5" fall in less than 1/2 hour. The good news is that it fell so fast that most of it ran off and didn't soak into the ground. (The ground is so wet I don't think it can absorb much, if any, more.) The Mesonet Station at Burneyville, which is several miles northwest of us, recorded just over an inch. I am sure that the Greenville, Overbrook, Lake Murray, and Enville areas recorded much more rainfall, and maybe the town of Marietta as well. The Oswalt Rd. area (fairly close to the Love-Carter County line) had larger hail than most of the rest of the county, and they had it earlier than everyone else.

EIGHTEEN INCHES OF RAINFALL IN ELEVEN DAYS: For anyone who is counting, we have had over 18" of rain here at our house since Wednesday, April 29th. I don't think my tomato plants are going to survive this much moisture in our heavy clay soil. Even in raised beds with heavily amended soil, the moisture level is outrageously high. For a while, I thought the corn would survive, but now I am beginning to think it won't. The squash, zukes and cukes are dead. The broccoli is deliriously happy, the onions are mostly happy, the potatoes less so. Most of the herbs seem alright.

And, for what it is worth, a scientist from the Ardmore-based Noble Foundation told local media that our particular soil can only hold about three weeks worth of moisture and that everything above that amount either runs off into the creeks, rivers and lakes, or soaks down into the aquifer. So, the way he phrased it was that we are always "only two to three weeks away from drought conditions" if the rain stops falling for a prolonged time. His words backed up what I have observed since moving here, but hearing it from a scientist made it sound worse than just observing it for yourself.

I am happy the ponds and creeks are full and that the pastures will grow for the cattle and horses. For us veggie gardeners, though, it is shaping up to be a poor year.

Most of my flowers are looking OK so far, but the poppies are yellowing and dying. They can't handle too much moisture. The zinnias aren't looking too good either. The lawn, trees, shrubs, vines and weeds all are growing like weeds.

I can't even plant beans, okra, black-eyed peas, pumpkins, winter squash and melons because it is far too wet. The peppers all most likely will go into containers beginning today because it is too wet for them to go into the ground.

And that's the report from southern OK where more rain is in the forecast for tonight, tomorrow and the next day. And, actually, rain is falling a few miles to our south so we may get hit by rain any minute now.

Jay, I wish you were getting some of this rain (and that we were not getting so much). The ground here is starting to get that sour, yucky smell you get when slowly-draining clay is totally saturated. Once you start smelling that, you begin to see plant death.

Dawn

Dawn,
I would accuse you both of being greedy but know how demoralizing it is and especially the helpless feeling you have as there is nothing you can do. And that now isn't the time to joke about it. When I received the over 4 inches in a hour and 6.5 inches over 4 hours five years ago the good thing is it moved out and we didn't receive anymore for two weeks. And in my sand within 3 days I was able to start planting back. Yours has lingered on so long. It is 59 here now. Cloudy but that is all. We have had real heavy dews of the mornings and even heavy fog a few mornings both of which are unusual but still no rain. I pray you all get some relief soon. Jay

Jay,

The true irony is that we were in a long drought from late July or early August 2007 through April 2009 and I moaned, groaned, whined, complained, begged for rain, pleaded for rain, and prayed for rain. Now we definitely have rain. It seems we only have two seasons here--Drought or Flood.

I will gladly send rain your way if you can figure out how I can capture it and transport it inexpensively. : )

Our rainfall total for 2009 is very close to our rainfall total for 2008--with both years being "extreme" in opposite ways. Our rainfall total through the end of April 2009 equals our rainfall total for the entire year of 2003.

I'd like to have two, nice normal weeks with mostly sunny, clear, skies and mild temps in the 80s/60s before the June heat arrives. Of course, no rain is needed at this point, so I'll throw in the word "dry" too. Is that too much to ask for?

The mosquitoes are hatching out and they are (a) humongous, (b) aggressive and (c) appearing in huge numbers. It is almost (but not quite) enough to make you wish for a long dry spell.

Dawn

The 12.89 inches of rain in Burneyville on April 29 was the highest daily total in Oklahoma in almost 36 years according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Oklahoma Field Office.

You guys just keep getting slammed this year. Glad to hear you didn't get blown to Oz!

Diane

Dawn, that is awful. I'm sorry. It looks like there is more coming. I hope it spares you.

The weather guy on tv just noted that we had had 13 days of rain out of 14 days.

I need to get out and pull more weeds. It's so much easier in rain soaked ground. Tonight I did pull up enough morning glories to cover the neighborhood!

Happy Mother's Day (a little early!)

Lisa

Y'all I just looked at the radar and guess it is another rainy day in Oklahoma for many of us.

Scott, That 12+" of rain is still mind-boggling. If I hadn't been here and seen it myself, I wouldn't have thought it possible. It came down so hard that numerous cars hydroplaned off I-35 and they wouldn't even tow the cars out of the ditches and median until the rain stopped because it was so bad they feared the tow truck drivers would be hit by another hydroplaning car. It was just like an icy day, but without the ice. Firefighters, law enforcement officers, medics, etc. were just as busy as they could be all day long, especially when flooding starting occurring in town.

Diane, It is bizarre that rain here in Love County seems to be an "all or none" proposition. We got another 6/10ths of an inch at our house overnight. I woke up and heard the rain and thought "Oh, not again......" My garden's prospects for survival worsens daily, and half of it IS raised beds. I've never had enough rain that potatoes wouldn't grow, but mine are stalling and I don't know if they will be OK or not. They are in a really well-drained raised bed, but since you plant them deep, they are staying too wet.

Lisa, I pulled so many weeds yesterday that my back and my hands hurt all night long and I didn't sleep well at all. Clearly I was out of shape and had not been "in training" for a full day of weeding! The flower beds look great, though. Now, if it stays dry enough today I'll try to weed in the veggie garden this afternoon. While the veggies are clearly suffering from having waterlogged roots, the weeds are not. It isn't fair.

Thanks for the Happy Mother's Day wish and I want to wish you a Happy Mother's Day too on behalf of your "borrowed" children.

Dawn