Trite, but true! The weather in Texas doesn't do anything by halves. It suddenly started raining again early this morning, and has been raining pretty heavily for the last couple of hours. The forecast calls for more showers for the next few days. Hurrah! I never thought I'd be so happy to see rain, after 6 years in England.

We still need lots of rain to recharge the Edwards Aquifer and dispell the drought. Here is what the drought monitor map looks like after the San Antonio area averaged 5.5 inches of rain earlier this month.

Compare it to August 25's map, showing the worst of it. This is when temperatures averaged 105, too. The forecast demurely says the temperature today will be "not as warm."

Where I live, in Guadalupe County northeast of San Antonio, we tend to get more rain than Bexar County. This is because it's on the east side of the fault line that is the eastern boundary of the Hill Country from San Antonio to Austin. More on that in a future post.

The biggest drawback to the welcome rain will be the flash floods that typically occur here because of the combination of heavy downpours that quickly saturate limestone/clay soils. And of course, the inevitable car wrecks from people driving as if it were dry and sunny.

As I write this, the sun is coming out and it is starting to steam outside. But we are making progress!