UPDATE Tues. about 8:00 AM CT: finally the rain arrived, just a few minutes ago. T.S. Bill is wide, extending about 150 miles west and 150 miles east along the coast from the center landfall (approximately now) at Matagorda. In that respect only, Bill reminds me of Hurricane Ike. Stella is toying with the idea of going to work (the roads are clear at the moment but who knows about this evening) and I am toying with the idea of finding a rope and tying her down (no, we're not into that sort of thing; I just don't want to see her stranded at her place of employment [which, damn it, has announced it will be open for business]) for TWO DAYS, which is the forecast duration of the potentially flooding rain.
UPDATE Tues. about 3:30 PM CT: at Our House in Houston, there's still no severe weather, very little rain and no flooding at all. Those who live in other parts of the city may have other experiences, perhaps even including tornadoes. This doesn't mean Bill has given us a miss: once the storm center is well onshore beyond Matagorda, we expect bands of rain, possibly training one after another, each brief and intense with short breaks in between, for more than 24 hours. Will we flood? Don't know; stay tuned.
The kitties are rather nervous, and Stella is even more so... she became so annoyed watching the continuous storm coverage on local broadcast TV (overall excellent IMHO) that she took to watching classic TV. I really need to see the end of this storm! 
It looks like Bill is going to be annoying for some time as it crawls to the North Northwest behind Houston and continues to pull in Gulf moisture.
ReplyDeleteBryan - yep. For a long time, at Our House in particular, we escaped any of these rain bands; finally, we got one an hour or so ago. The rain shower was unimpressive: unless it falls stronger than that, for longer than a few minutes at a time, the bayou will accommodate it just fine, even with wet ground.
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