It's 9:43am and since 3am this morning, we've had 11.94 inches of rain at my house here in Oklahoma City. This is verified by both my electronic and physical rain gauges. We have streets all around us with many vehicles completely underwater in the low areas. I've been out shooting pics and video and am headed out again now. The rain is not letting up so far. The storms are just training on top of us and are very localized. People 5 miles form here have gotten very little rain. More later.
We're at 12.67 inches and it's starting to let up. There is a housing edition called Ski Island about 1 mile South of us at Hefner and MacArthur that has a larger lake surrounded by houses. Its dam is in danger of breaching. There are huge $500,000+ houses just below this damn. There is a major evacuation underway right now. Here's a pic and a link to the video of a spot on MacArthur just 1/2 mile from us. Here's the video. [ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/42565092@N03/4699726783/"]Oklahoma City, 122nd & MacArthur on Flickr - Photo Sharing!@@AMEPARAM@@http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/4699726783_4f5d124c4f_m.jpg@@AMEPARAM@@4699726783@@AMEPARAM@@4f5d124c4f[/ame] I took the pics and video with my Canon PowerShot SX10 IS and no I'm not an experienced videographer.
It's shots like these that make me glad my house is about 6 feet above the street, and that the street is sitting in a small hill
Absolutely!. My house is about 100 ft higher than this spot. We're purposely built on the highest lot in the edition so our water runs down on everyone else. There is a housing edition just downhill on the creek where that water is running to. People will build in crazy places with little thought to their surroundings or the future. We have many swift water rescues going on right now.
To all those who think the effects of global warming either are not going to happen, or be gently benign, open your eyes. (I understand that one can't use any one extraordinary weather event and link it to climate change, but the shear number of such events (that mirror the predictions!) tells one that something is going on!)
I don't discount what you're saying at all. Imagine a super-cell thunderstorm dumping in one place for 6 hours without moving. That's what we had. This kind of rainfall is unusual for us but super-cell thunderstorms here in tornado alley are not. This one just didn't move. This was primarily caused by the cold front sweeping down from Colorado this morning and thick moist air from the Gulf crashing into each other. Believe it or not, they actually forecast this high rainfall in this very small area 3 days ago. We have some of the most complex and interesting weather in the world and some of the best forecasters anywhere. They predicted we'd get 2.5 inches in my specific area and much less in the surrounding areas. They got everything right except for the amount. PS, we topped out with 12.69 inches in under 6 hours.
So did it rain out Casady Middle School? Except for the science classes, I was not fond of that place, not one bit. Bob Wilson
OMG, a Casady kid. Suddenly I understand you sooo much more. (just kidding, really) It's fairly high in that area. I'm afraid it's bad news, it survived. All the water's gone off the streets but the big problem now is everything downstream is flooding. All the Deep Fork drainage area is inundated. Check out the flooding NWS
Hey guys - so I heard about all the rain, and I'm building a boat. A big one. I thought it might be a good idea to put some zoo animals on it too....
LOL, sounds like a great idea. It's started raining again and were now up to 13.26 inches since 3am. Sheez.
What a difference a day makes. All the water is gone. Unfortunately Monday is trash day in our area. There are countless large blue 90 gallon trash bins that were washed into big piles as well as the open top blue recycle bins. All the contents of the recycle bins was spilled out and is now lining all the creeks, etc. We have a big cleanup ahead. Here's a link to other pics posted by residents on Flicker. Eyewitness Photos of U.S. Floods - a gallery on Flickr
Meanwhile, back at the ranch,,, Is there anyone out there, (including OK Sen. Inhoffe!) who hasn't yet figured out that one of the results of too much CO2 is (not going to be, but is) climate change, not just global warming. Climate scientists have predicted for a generation now that the results of global warming are going to be, severe, unpredictable, and will in many cases lead to events of "abnormal" weather. More rain some places, less in others. Events like this, coupled with weather events in this past year like record warm winter on the Pacific coast from N. Cal to Alaska, record snow in the UK, record (low) snow, and record early ice out in sub arctic Canada, and on and on and on, are in fact, the kind of events that will come with continual climate change. (just to name a few just in this year!) My suggestion, unless we are really going to address the core issues (oil spills not withstanding!) I would suggest you buy boots and rain gear, and drought resistant plants along with parasols too keep the sun at bay. (Come to think of it, an umbrella will serve both functions,, keeping you dry and keeps the sun off). The point being, these kind of of "abnormal" events are going to become increasingly "normal". Anyone been to the Arctic lately?
Dam it Icky, if Mark's area was experiencing 125 degree weather instead of the rain, you would have said that was AGW too.
