A beautiful blue sky and a crystal clear night have dominated the weather forecast for a few days. Warm days and pleasantly cool mornings are just perfect for me.
Hey, did you get a chance to view last night's spectacular display of the bright International Space Station crossing the sky in the same vicinity of the moon and Jupiter? It really was a special treat, since I had no idea the three objects were going to share such a small part of the sky together.
What made this more interesting was other objects were crossing the sky at about the same time frame, possibly an airplane. As it traversed across the sky, it suddenly brightened then gradually dimmed over the next several seconds, briefly being illuminated by the sun (that had already set over a half hour earlier) during that time.
From the friendly skies to the ground below was an exceptional weekend for our region, but...
The skies were not so friendly over the weekend for parts of the Rockies and the Texas/Oklahoma regions.
In and around the Denver area, snowfall amounts in excess of a foot have caused some travel issues, including airport delays at the Stapleton Airport in Denver.
I have seen some reports of over 4 feet, just from this past weekend storm...
| Listed Below is a small sample of Total Snowfall Reports | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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While April snowstorms are not uncommon in these areas, the amounts seen over the weekend were nothing short of amazing.
Denver, at 12.1" for the weekend, recently reached a high of 77 degrees last Thursday on the 14th. What a turnaround!
On the spring side of things, dangerous flooding conditions are currently ongoing in parts of east Texas, especially.
I was just reading some of the storm reports from the Houston/Galveston NWS office. Road closures, water rescues, up to 70 subdivisions now flooded in Houston, water even flowing over part of Interstate 10, and the rain does not appear to be abating anytime soon.
The rainfall began picking up in intensity just a few hours ago in Houston, where nearly 4" has fallen in the last 3 hours or so with heavy rain continuing to fall.
Radar estimates of rainfall since Saturday morning show over a foot of rain has occurred west of Houston.
A massive ridge in the east, partly responsible for our lovely weather, has kept the bulk of the rain confined to the same locations for the past few days.
From the Dallas/Fort Worth NWS office, rainfall amounts of 3-7" were common over the weekend. That system is what is now affecting Houston and will slowly trek east as the ridge finally begins to break down.
Finally, believe it or not, we are still dealing with a strong El Nino. However, it is weakening. The numbers have shown a 50% retracement from its mean high in the Nino 3-4 region. Therefore, the running mean (generally 3 months) will continue its downward spiral.
In fact, later on this year, we could be looking at La Nina conditions, which may make for an interesting winter and severe weather season next spring.
There's your long-range outlook. Now, if I can only predict what's going to happen this week....
MS
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