More Stormy Weather

Another round of storms passed through our area Monday night and Tuesday morning.

We were expecting more severe weather. First, we had a wind advisory posted from about noon Monday to early Tuesday morning. As I understand, a wind advisory is posted when there are sustained winds of 31 to 39 mph. We attained that. Donna and I sat out Monday afternoon and watched butterflies and birds flying into the face of the wind and getting pushed back. The poor little guys must have really worn themselves out flying into the face of that strong wind out of the south.

As evening came on, the winds eased some. All in all, we lucked out again. This time, the most severe part of the storms passed us to the north. Daughter Courtney and her family had more severe weather this time than we did. I don't really know the extent of it, but Court sent us the picture below of a good sized hail stone. She indicated that grandson Xander had some hail damage to his car.

Ping-pong sized hail stone

I believe there was flooding in that area, including Midland. We only received about a quarter inch of rain in Angelo, though. But that brings our total for the month of May to just over 5 inches, which is about double what we normally get for the month.

In the storm this past Saturday morning, we did have a couple of tornadoes touch down in the San Angelo area. Most of the damage was in what is known as the Bradford area in the north part of town. The Boys Ranch just west of town had extensive damage as well; in fact, I believe every building on their property suffered some type of roof damage. But no serious injuries were reported in town that I know of. Some areas of town were without power from Saturday morning to either late Monday or early Tuesday.

We received about 3½ inches of rain on Saturday after all was said and done. As you might expect, that has increased lake levels even more than I reported a week or two ago. Lake OH Ivie is now at 67.3% capacity, up from its previous 61.6%. Twin Buttes is now at 73.6% capacity, up from 71.8. Since most of the rain from early Tuesday morning was to our north over the Colorado River watershed, I expect Ivie to increase even more over the next day or so.

Trees in the area were heavily damaged. As you drive down residential streets, there are piles of branches and other storm debris at the curb of many, many homes. Lots of cleanup is going on. Donna and I and the other inmates of Rio Concho West were very fortunate as I know of absolutely no damage in our community, not even a downed tree limb.