I hate the waiting too. I worked in the garden until raindrops were falling on my head and then I closed it up and came indoors. With all the rain in the forecast for the next 2-3 days, I don't expect to step foot in the garden (well, maybe I could go in there in a kayak or canoe) until Friday or Saturday at the earliest.

Stockergal, Ditto on looking at plants, wanting plants, but not buying many plants because it would seem cruel to plant them right now. I did buy a few 'Cora' periwinkles and plant them a couple of days ago. Now, I just have to hope the rain doesn't kill them. I planted them as high in the raised bed as I could.

Paula, What is it with Norman and the flooding this year? Everytime it even thinks about raining, some part of Norman floods and then the first responders are out rescuing someone out of high water. Y'all have had such a horrible ordeal with all that flooding.

The Red River here had dropped a lot in recent days, and now it is headed back up over 30' before the weekend gets here. I think it was in the very low teens at the start of the week. Even today it was only in the mid- to upper-teens. I cannot believe how quickly and how high it is forecast to rise in the next couple of days.

Lake Texoma is about to do something it never has done before----it is going to go over the spillway for the second time in the same year. This morning it was back at 637.7 so it won't take much for it to go back over 640'. It seemed so historic in May when it went over the emergency spillway for only the 4th time in its history. Now that it is doing it for the 5th time, I am not sure it feels as special.

At Lake Murray, water isl spilling over the spillway at Scenic Hwy 77 and they now have closed down Scenic 77 until further notice. They kept it open all day, but went ahead and shut it down a few minutes ago.

I harvested everything I could, and even pulled a few weeks and sowed a few seeds. Now, it is a waiting game to see who wins----the weather or the gardener.

Y'all be careful and stay safe as Bill pounds away at us relentlessly. I remember when the remnants of Hermine came through a few years ago----it rained like crazy and people just started floating off the roadways into creeks and ditches.

Dawn

The city of Norman is notorious for its poor drainage system. There are several intersections in town that fill with water routinely even in dry years. This year they even sent out press releases of maps that show all the "flood-prone" areas in town so that people will avoid them when it rains. I think that's why it always seems like we're all drowning here.

That is terrible planning on the part of Norman, isn't it?

The wait for Bill ended here around 9 a.m. but the rain was quite sporadic for a few hours before it settled down and got serious about drowning every garden plant still alive.

Mega-amounts of rain are falling. About a half hour ago I went outside and emptied 3.2" of rain out of my rain gauge during a lull between bands of rainfall, and it has been raining steadily since then. I was worried the gauge would start overflowing during the next band of rain and I'm glad I emptied it when I did.

We have a flood everything here....Flood Warning, Flash Flood Watch, Flash Flood Warning and a Flood Advisory. This system is a serious rain-maker as advertised. The Red River and Lake Texoma are in big trouble.The last time I looked at the Red River Flood Warning for the Gainesville, TX, bridge, they were warning ranchers to move cattle 12' higher than the nearest river bank as the river currently is expected to crest tomorrow at 36.8'. Earlier this week I believe its elevation was in the teens. That 12'-from-the-nearest-river-bank amount is also the highest number I remember from the May flooding. A couple of days ago, I realized the river water had receded so much that some sand bars with fairly tall (for a sand bar) trees had become visible again in the Red River. The one I saw had a tree 8-10' tall. Well this morning, before the heavy rain even got here, that sand bar, tree and all, had disappeared again.

I don't know how far north the rain has made it, but here in southcentral OK, it is raining like we have a land-cane.

We had a nice break here in Durant, looks like we are going to get some more soon. I have over 3" in the gauge as of 4:30 PM for today's total. Overall though, I think Dawn over towards Ardmore is getting a lot more than us 50 miles east.

Burneyville has a little over 5" now and it is a bit northwest of me. Down here between Marietta and Thackerville we have had 4.6" today so far, but are getting a bit of a break right now so I went outside, fed the wild birds and bunnies and looked around. (I am not a fool, I was wearing rain boots.) The pond had dropped several feet since the last flood and was getting pretty low, but is filled up to the top again and on the verge of overflowing. I think I saw squirrels out there surfing.

A lot of rain has fallen west and north of Fort Worth but at least that rain won't be flowing into the Red River. Based on how far west it is falling in Texas, I'm not surprised we are getting a little more rain here west of I-35 in OK as well. I think that westward shift is why I've gotten more rain so far than kfrinkle, who I think may not get the 8-9" originally predicted for Bryan County.

We've had more than enough rainfall now. Bill can move on up the road anytime he wants.

Ardmore is flooding worse that we are down here, likely because it largely has a flatter topography. Tim and I were up there Sunday during a rainstorm and Commerce Street and the Wal-Mart parking lot were flooded then for a little while. I understand Commerce is flooded now and city/county officials are asking folks in Carter County to stay home and stay off the roads and even worse flooding is likely since the rain is continuing. We have lots of minor flash flooding here but I haven't heard of anything major yet. The major part will come as our rainfall flows into the river and thence into the lake.

I am going to sign up my garden plants for scuba lessons.

We are just starting to get rain here in SW OKC still donot know how much to expect. I am saying a prayer for you guys in the southern part of the state. Nobody need this!

Dawn, I agree Mr. Bill can move out at any time

Everybody stay safe

I just heard a report that some roads in western Love County are flooded. At least one road is under 4' of water. That is why I am staying at home. No flooding in or near the house. Y'all be careful as it gets dark----no one will be able to tell how deep the water is in the dark.

I hope everyone is okay.. including those not on this forum. I'm so exhausted from sloshing around in mud outside. I can only imagine how Southern Oklahoma is tolerating conditions right now.

Been a slow steady soaker here in NE Norman since about 5 this afternoon. Seems there's quite a bit of wind gusts too. No obvious flooding that I can see but there was quite a bit of ponding on my way home from work the closer I got to home. Just a few puddles in the front 2 acres. It's supposed to increase overnight so I'll just await sunrise to decide if I venture into work at the FAA. Our area is forecast up to 5" overnight...and that's still only half-way up our brick skirting on the house from past experience so I'm going to go to bed assuming I won't awake to soggy floors.

It pains me to see Commerce in Ardmore so flooded. I grew up there until I was 6 then visited the grandparents often after that. I wasn't born there but it's still my "home town". The house we lived in has since been torn down over on E Street. The "new" library was built next door in the mid-60's! Yes, it's moved now too. But Commerce has always been the happenin' place even as I'm an adult and take a detour thru there on any trip that direction.

Hope we all come out on the other side of this with sunshine, dry land and recovering gardens. Good grief. I've still got to get some okra and bean seeds in the ground! Sunday is not only Father's Day, but the first day of Summer. Surely warm temps will arrive soon after!

Paula

Paula, you must live so close to me. I'm near Indian Hills and Sooner. I just got home from work (Wednesday is my long day at my "second" job). It was fine coming in--no flooded roads. Have you seen the car that is still stuck in the dense brush and trees at Indian Hills just a little east of I35? I'm a little obsessed with that car. I'm still not sure how it made it back there. That car (and it's story) made it to the news about 5 or 6 weeks ago--the Friday that was so bad. I'm not sure how they'll get it out. I'm so thankful the 2 women and little girl were saved.

Both of my parents retired from FAA btw.

I replanted my garden last week. It might drown too, like the first one. At least there's not hail. So far.

Maybe we just haven't seen the worst of it yet here in Norman, but so far we seem to be faring better with this moderate, steady tropical rain than we did with the gully washers in May. The drains around our house are actually keeping up and keeping us dry this time around.

It's not sounding good in Ardmore based on the reports I'm seeing on Twitter. Stay safe tonight everyone!

Paula, Dawn and I were both born in Ft Worth, then moved to Oklahoma. I went to high school in Lone Grove, so Ardmore was always 'town' to me. I also keep close tabs on Ardmore and have a lot of family near there. My family mostly live around the Lone Grove area so I have been watching that rainfall for Ardmore and Newport very closely. The Mesonet is showing that Newport has had 9.57 inches in 24 hours and it is going up all of the time. That is insane.

Only sprinkles here so far, but it is coming. They keep lowering the expected rainfall amount and I am sure hoping they are right. I just ran to Walmart to make sure I had plenty of ready-to-eat food at our house because losing electric power is a threat with any storm here. I expected the store to be mobbed, but instead the town seemed very quiet. I guess everyone has gone home to wait it out. I got a reminder this morning when I heard a loud pop and my computer went down. Al looked at the electric pole where the transformer is and said something had triggered the breaker. When the electric company came to replace the fuse, I watched him looking around on the ground. He said, "Hmm, there is usually a bird or squirrel on the ground." I laughed and told him my neighbor watched her dog grab the squirrel as it hit the ground. LOL

At our house, we were luckier than many others and only recorded 6.2" of rain so far from Tropical Depression Bill and his remnants. Our Mesonet station at Burneyville has a smidgen over 8". Up in Carter County to our north, the heaviest rainfall and flooding were in and near Carol's old stomping grounds in the Lone Grove, Healdton and Wilson areas. The Newport Mesonet Station recorded over 10", but when you add in the rain from earlier in the week, they are over 14" for the week, which helps explain all the flooding. Water rescues were underway in Carter County last night while we were eating dinner. Sadly, a two year old child was washed away in the Carter County flooding last night. The search for this child was to resume at daybreak. What an unspeakable tragedy for this family and all who know them.

For both Carter and Love Counties, and likely many other counties on both sides of the Red River, official rain totals year-to-date already exceed the annual average rainfall. Many roads in Carter County remain closed today.

The Red River was down to around 12-14' at the Gainesville-Thackerville I-35 bridge at the beginning of this week. It is expected to crest later today around 37.5' (so if you have cows in river bottom lands, you need to have moved them 13' higher than the nearest river bank). This is either equal to what we saw in May, or slightly higher. Lake Texoma was barely over 637' yesterday. This morning it is around 639' and is expected to crest (at and then probably significantly over 640') later today. This will be its 5th time since the lake was built that the water has flowed over the emergency spillway, and the second time in less than a month. The Washita River which carries runoff from the north down into Lake Texoma is expected to crest near 44'. All the above is with the rainfall we have already had. If more rain falls today, things just get worse.

Y'all stay dry and safe today and I hope Bill's remnants have been kind to you all. We are fine at our place. The rain and mud will dry up and life will go on as usual for our family, but I feel deep sympathy for all the folks in Carter County and other places who have suffered significantly more damage and heartbreaking loss.

Dawn

hazelinok - we're practically neighbors! We should hang out together at K&K if we really want to get into some mischief! And YES I've seen that white SUV! I'm surprised they've left it there this long with the door all open and even the hood over the engine! But maybe it's there to remind others to NOT drive into flood waters.

Bill didn't keep me from work today although it was an interesting drive. I now know a vehicle can slip and slide on mud and gravel the same as ice. heh. And we only received a little over 3" in the rain gauge overnight so we just have a small pond under the red buds.

We were lucky here and only got light rain all night. I watched the Mesonet all evening as the rainfall kept increasing in Carter County where my sister and her grown children all live. I watched Newport as it made it up to 10 inches, then added each time the site updated and finally went above 11. All the while the radar looked like it had more red color right around Lone Grove than it did at Newport. I talked to my nephew this morning and they are all well, but his neighbor had dumped 13.6 inches of rain from his gauge and he said an OKC station had confirmed that amount this morning. That is an unbelievable amount of water. He said that one of their stores got wet floors, and a rent house had a roof leak that caused some drywall to fall, but those are not serious things. One of my nephews once had a home that flooded so I think they all learned a lesson from that and built on higher ground.

Our rain just started again here in Grove.

Once again, I hightailed it outta there (this time), just before the Bill hit the fan. WOW, 13.6 inches!!! I know, my intersection is flooded again, and the electric was off... but the rest I will find out when I get back.

Hope everyone is ok.

Moni

Sorry, Moni! Has anyone heard from Dawn today?

P-Mac, Glad you got to work okay and even happier that Lake Redbud is only a small pond today.

Carol, I wonder if the missing child was in that area where the 13.6" of rain fell. Media reports have not specified the exact road where the family's home was located. What KXII did report a few minutes ago is that the little boy was pulled out of his father's arms as the family was fleeing their flooded home in 15' of water. Assuming the news anchor did not mis-speak on that 15', then they must have been on top of a 2-story house and then had no choice but to try to swim. It is horrible to contemplate what they were going through. The search for the child continues.

Carter County and many surrounding counties are a total wreck. There's so much damage, flooded roads, etc. and even first responders are being dispatched to locations they cannot access easily, if at all.

I-35 is closed down near the Turner Falls exit as a landslide sent huge boulders into the roadway. Other roads are under water and some are washed out. If anyone is traveling south today or tomorrow, check the ODOT website for current road hazards and plan an alternate route.

The river levels are incredible. The Washita River now is forecast to crest just over 47', which is roughly 2' higher than its current record crest. The Red River here is projected to crest at 38.5', which I think is the highest it has been since we moved here. If Stockergal had cattle in bottom land here near the Red River, now she'd have to move them to land 14' higher than the river bank.

I don't know how much of the activity in our county is related to the weather, but there are some Fire Departments out working calls, and all our medics and cops are running from call to call. They always work hard, but today it sounds like everyone is working harder than usual.

Moni, What a huge amount of rainfall! I hope your plants get to dry out before rot and disease can set in.

Amy, I'm here. We're fine. Only 6.2" from Bill, giving us right at 8" for this week. Compared to all the troubles in Carter and Murray counties and other areas surrounding them, our life is a piece of cake. Nothing wrong here---just the usual puddles and mud, mud and puddles and puddles and mud. Deja Vu.

I think it was Tuesday morning that Lake Murray began sending a trickle (1" deep at that time) of water across the Scenic Hwy 77 spillway. Now that tiny trickle is 2' of water and likely to get worse. Lake Texoma is going to be raging over the spillway any time now.

For anyone and everyone in southern Oklahoma, today is a good day to stay home and stay out of the way of all the first responders, utility company workers, county road guys, and ODOT guys. It sounds like they have their hands full trying to get things back to normal, or something near normal, as quickly as possible.

Dawn

I am glad to hear y'all are safe. We are drying out and hope to keep drying for a few days. Moni let us know when you get back home ok.

Bill is on top of us now. Just a steady rain. No real downpours. our mesonet says about 3.5 inches since it started. No real bad flooding that I am aware of.

Dawn, my nephew said that Hickory Creek crosses Plainview Road just south of Plainview school. We heard last night that it was a father that had a toddler washed away from him, then that it was a little boy, then my nephew said the story there was a mother and daughter. I think they tried to report before they had enough info, but at any rate a 2 year old was swept away. The intersection they quoted was Myall Road and Plainview Road. Plainview Road is just west of I-35 and Myall Road is one mile south of Hiway 70, so just south of there is what I am understanding.

KTEN is reporting that it was a 2 year old boy swept from his father's arms as they were trying to leave their home. The body has been found and identified.

Kim, You know how it is in this part of the country---now that the rain has moved on and the sun is out, we'll dry up quickly and rain won't fall and soon we'll find ourselves having to water our plants. It never fails.

Mike, I hope nice, gentle rain is all you get. You don't want the hard downpour that wreaked havoc here.

Carol, When I heard Criner Hills firefighters out doing rescues around dinner time last night, they were in the Plainview Rd area and mentioned that the creek had come up and water was entering a house. Lots more rain fell up there even after that, so I imagine it got really awful. Down here the rain already was slowing down a lot because the center of circulation was approaching. It continued raining harder out in western Love County even as our rain tapered off, so they had the flooded roads (and some still are flooded or impassable from damage or debris).

I missed the first 10 minutes of the evening news, so didn't really hear any news----just weather, sports, etc., so I didn't know they had found the little guy. I hope it comforts his family to know his body was found so quickly.

On the weather front, Lake Texoma is only about 1.5" from going over the spillway so it is almost there....again.... and Steve LaNore said the lake likely will keep rising 2-3' per day for the next few days. He thinks there is a chance the lake will reach an elevation it never has reached before.

Some folks we know in Marietta had floodwater enter their home. That's twice in a month that some homes in Marietta have flooded. It looks like 2015 is shaping up to be a year to remember for all the wrong reasons.

I looked at my garden today (from outside the fence) and it looked lovely except for the fungal diseases erupting all over. Oh, and of course all the pathways are little canals of flowing water again. I don't care. I expected the diseases and the flowing stream of water through the pathways. The miracle would be if we'd had all this rain and didn't have fungal diseases on anything. At least the onions and potatoes all are harvested so the excess moisture cannot hurt them. The storm knocked more green plums off the trees, but didn't harm the peaches, so at least there is that.

Dawn

We were lucky here in SW OKC only received 2" here at the house. It was a slow rain over 14 plus hours. Everything is sloppy again but with the forcast of hot and windy we will dry up quickly.

Dawn, all the cattle are fine, thanks I think most of this rain went in the ground because my mulch is till all in place, go figure?

My prayers go out to all of you that got hammered by Bill, hope everything gets back on trac for you soon.

I cannot imagine the anguish of losing a loved one due to weather. It is a hard fact to deal with and no one should have to lose a child or any loved one.

Hope the weather stays on trac and Dawn can start asking us "what's new in our gardens this week" and no one has to talk about weather. But this is oklahoma and weather will always be a headline.

Everybody stay safe and dry.

Since I don't have tv or radio I never know how bad it is until y'all tell me or my mom who has been in the hospital, she is fine now, so I really am out of touch here. Y'all be safe and aware. Maybe I will get a radio here.

I'm hoping to be asking the usual questions within the next couple of days. We've got to give all the folks in eastern and northeastern OK time to get Bill out of their hair first.

Tonight Lake Texoma began going over the spillway again. The Washita River at Dickson in Carter County is at 46.5 tonight and expected to crest at a reord 47.5' tomorrow (though I haven't checked it in the last hour, so it may have changed), which will be almost 3' higher than their previous record. This is near-catastrophic flooding. They'd have to hit 48.0 to be considered in catastrophic flood. The Red River at Gainesville is expected to crest tomorrow at 39.5', just 0.6' below the all-time record. Tim said when he drove over the bridge this evening on his way to work, the water was the highest he's seen it and tried to describe it to me in terms of how it was about 3' from topping the concrete piers beneath the railroad bridge. Then, to make his point, he said "really, really high".

When I think of all the horrible drought years when we would have given anything to have an inch of rain fall from the sky and we couldn't get even that little bit, and now.....there's water everywhere. Everywhere. It is mind-boggling. Every time you think the flooding is as bad as it can get, it gets worse. It is unfortunate that our weather swings wildly from one extreme to the other instead of sort of staying middle-of-the-road. Oklahoma weather does not do middle-of-the-road very often.

I want to work in the garden tomorrow, but if there's still water standing in the pathways, I'll stay inside and clean house instead. I bet the heat index numbers are going to be awful across the state the next few days.

Southern OK Flooding Update: Record Crests today for Red River @ Gainesville and Washita River at Dickson OK. Red River about to crest around 41' or may have done so since last time I checked its level. Its previous record was 40.1' and Flood Stage is 25'. Major flooding is occurring. My son said the river was so high this morning that he drove over the bridge at 80 mph. (I wish he hadn't told me that!)

The Washita River was projected to crest this morning at 47.5', but it was that high before midnight last night. This morning it has crested at 48.7', beating its old record crest of 45.2". Catastrophic flooding is occurring. I think they said it is 21.8' over its flood stage.

I am trying to imagine what this much water will do to Lake Texoma. It began going over the emergency spillway for only the fifth time in its history (and the second time in less than a month) late yesterday. At 6 a.m. today it was at 640.79'.

I am glad/relieved we are too far from the Red River or the lake to have our property flooded. I feel bad for the folks along the Washita River. It is stunning how quickly it has risen and turned into a major torrent. Last night on the evening news on KXII, Tom Hale described it as a river that was "completely out of control" and I thought that was a perfect description.

I hope Mother Nature doesn't try to even things out by not raining for the next two months. I expect my garden will be dry and needing water in 7-10 days, or less if we are really hot and sunny every day.

I don't ever recall Oklahoma weather being " middle of the road " . It was Will Rogers who coined the phrase " if you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, wait five minutes " ........ and since he said that in the 1930's , people in every other state have used it to describe their weather . But its very real for Oklahoma, which is probably a large part of the reason the NWS has a big presence on the OU campus, severe storm study alone does not make Oklahoma a great place to study the weather.

We've always had extremes, very hot in the summer, cold and frigid in the winter, stormy in the spring. The only mild season here is the fall, which is beautiful, and maybe why we enjoy football so much :)

I get a bit weary of this " its never been like this before " , when I've heard that said all my life. I recall a February day in 1981, when it got up to 95 degrees. We had derechos in consecutive summers , circa 1995 or 96, went all the way across the state, I had never seen one before, and have not seen one since.

Live long enough, and you will see things you've never seen before.

Just in case you want a picture of the Red River at I-35 as of this morning (from NWS Norman's Twitter):

That is so horrible. I am about to post info from a bridge closure message we just received. Will put it on its own thread for the sake of any gardeners hoping to travel south. The photo Tim took early this morning of the adjacent RR trestle bridge is about the same. I don't know if the trains are still running.

thats crazy. to put that in perspective what is the normal distance from the river to the bridge?

Rick Smith from NWS Norman posted some pictures of that too on his account if you want to take a look: https://twitter.com/ounwcm

I'm not sure the pics do it justice, though. Being in Norman I would say that "normal Red River" looks similar to the Canadian River at I-35 here, but it's a lot wider. The amount of water it would take to fill that entire flood plain up is insane.

EDIT: I just did some digging around on the USGS's real-time streamflow website. The gauge at that Red River bridge right now is measuring a flow rate of nearly 300,000 cubic feet per second.

WOW! those pics are crazy!

Our local news ran this story: The Norton Road Bridge spanned the Washita River just north Mannsville in Johnston County for at least 100 years. The river washed it away at about 9:45 p.m. on June 18, 2015. http://m.newson6.com/story.aspx?story=29362082&catId=112042