by Aaron Graves
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| This swallowtail butterfly was enjoying the fruits of the recent rains. |
August was running hot when rain on the 26th cooled things down a bit. However, it was the weather on Friday, Sept 5, that caused a collective sigh of relief and satisfaction. Indeed, summer's grip on the Texas Panhandle has shown the first signs of giving way.
Tropical moisture moved in Thursday from - of all places - the Pacific ocean, moving up across the deserts of Mexico towards us. Some light rain fell overnight, but the sky really opened up on Friday. The National Weather Service in Amarillo reports 0.77" of rain fell at the Dalhart airport. Additional reports relayed to the NWS include 1.60" about 4 miles east of Dalhart, and 1.30" inside the city.
CoCoRahs observers reported 1.28" eight miles northwest of Dalhart and 1.31" in Texline. Texaspivot.com shows 1.60" of rain from a pivot close to Hartley and 2.00" from a pivot north of Channing. Pivots near Middlewater showed 1.40" to 1.60" of rain. Similar rain totals were reported from pivots near Texline, north of Dalhart along Hwy. 385, and along Hwy. 54 heading towards Stratford.
Previously, Dalhart benefited from another good rain on Aug. 26. The NWS recorded 0.51" of rain at the airport, which brought our total rainfall for August to 0.88". I got 1.20" in my rain gauge on the southeast side of town. CoCoRahs reported 0.69" eight miles northwest of town and 0.93" in Texline.
As of Sept. 7, we have received 9.41" of precipitation throughout 2014. On average, we usually have 13.77" by Sept. 7, so we are running 4.36" behind, according to stats from the NWS. However, this time last year, we only had 5.02" of precipitation. Thus, 2014 - which in May looked like we were headed towards the worse drought conditions yet - is now wetter than it has been since 2011.
At the time of posting this blog (Thurs. Sept. 11), more rain was in the forecast - a 70% chance over the next day or so.
Temperatures after the Sept. 5 rain dropped into the upper 70s and stayed there for a couple of days. This is the first time we've seen our daily high in the upper 70s since the end of July - which is not a bad a thing. Although we've had successive days of above 90 degree heat, we have only had 7 days this summer when the temperature topped 100 degrees - the latest being a high of 101 on Aug. 31 and a high of 100 on Sept. 3. August 2014 ended with an average high of 93.6 degrees and an average low of 63. It was, on average, 3 degrees hotter in August compared to the 30 year average.
High and low temperatures the past two weeks:
Aug 26: 94, 63
Aug 27: 88, 66
Aug 28: 86, 59
Aug 29: 91, 59
Aug 30: 94, 61
Aug 31: 101, 64
Sep 1: 88, 61
Sep 2: 88, 67
Sep 3: 100, 65
Sep 4: 95, 67
Sep 5: 77, 54
Sep 6: 72, 51
Sep 7: 78, 53
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