I hear you Dawn, they have predicted 3 1/2" for our area. I think it will be more like 2" and yes I would be doing the happy dance!!!!!!

I know ya'll probably saw it already, but it's looking mighty possible. Yay for South OK and N Texas!


mesonet Link

Yeppers, just got my fall/winter cole crop seeds in the ground, so it is about time for a heavy rain to wash them all away! You guys can thank me later.

Bon, I check that graphic daily on their webpage, sometimes a couple of times a day. It updates regularly and actually looks less promising for SW OK today than it did yesterday, when a portion of that area was in the 3-4" category. I believe rain will fall and that it possibly will be heavy at times, but I never expect to get as much as they say because we rarely do. On the other hand, there was a day we were forecast to be in the 3-5" category and we got almost 13" in one day, although that sort of thing is pretty rare. Usually it is the opposite---they show 2-4" and we get 1" or practically none. Forecasts are just educated guesses based on models that are not infallible, but I do have a positive gut feeling and thing we'll get good rain.

Here's the latest 7-day QPF:

QPF 7-Day

kfrinkle, Thank you.

Dawn

I've been piling up my dirt for berms this week. I've lost my neck strength and cannot do squat until I heal. I'm happy with what I have and where. It would be a shame to have flash flood erosion, again.

Can I brick down gunny sacks atop those berms to help from washing away? I'm wondering if I shouldn't do cardboard, too.

never mind. Looks like I have until Thursday until a potential flash flood. We're covering the first berm now.

The weather guys are saying 1-2" should be what most of us get. The computer projections are on the high side.

My experience is that the computer projections normally are on the high side, but every now and then we get what they say, or even more. I'll be watching today to see what falls in west Texas and in western OK. If they are getting a big deluge accompanied by flooding, then we will have to choose what that leads us to believe, either: (a) Boy howdy! We're gonna have big rain and floods, or (b) Dangit! They're gonna get all the rain out west and it won't leave much for us (grin). Either way, as long as something wet is falling from the sky, I'll be happy. Wet is good and it is the total opposite of what we've been having so it will be an improvement.

Bon, Cover your berms with anything and everything you can get your hands on that will reduce erosion. If we were to magically get the big rain they're forecasting, every bit of work you've been putting into erosion prevention will be worth it.

I guess I need to dig my rain boots out of the closet today and stick them down in the mud room by the back door just in case we get enough rain that I might need them sometime over the next few days. I haven't worn rain boots since extremely early July or maybe it was late June.

Dawn

Did they just up the amount of rain we are going to get?

New QPF

This evenings weather cast did bump it up a little. Who knows?

I saw that, too!

That QPF updates several times a day and I don't get too excited over big fluctuations because it often sort of swings from one extreme to the other and then back again. It is a compilation of data from several different models I think.

I've been watching the NWS-Fort Worth forecast incredibly closely because my husband's employer has a huge charity event scheduled for Fri and Sat nite and the last thing they need is rain. So, of course, they are expected to get a ton of rain.Flooding would be a huge issue for people trying to arrive to attend the big event, so he's hoping it does not happen. (And I know he and his guys will be out working in it if it does occur, so I'm hoping lightning stays away from that area during that charity event.)

Based on the QPF you posted, which I noticed around dinner time last night, I convinced him to take enough clothes to work this morning for 3 days in case it rains so much he cannot make it home. Do I think that's likely? No. I don't think they'll get 8-12" of rain over a widespread area in the DFW Metro area, but why not have the extra clothing just in case he is trapped there by flash flooding between his employee and our house, 80 miles further north? Often the flooding occurs along the I-35 corridor in Denton and Cooke Counties during heavy rainfall, and that's his route home. I'd rather have him book a room at one of the airport's six fire stations than try to drive home through flood water.

The Euro and the American models both are forecasting some high totals, but those really high totals are not expected (by local forecasters who are interpreting the models) to be widespread. Rather, they are expected to be from small but heavy bands located somewhere within the larger storm. Since the models and local forecasters cannot predict in advance where those scattered heavy bands will develop, the models show those very heavy totals over a widespread area so everyone is aware they could occur. The reality is that they likely will occur somewhere, but not everywhere.

Even though we all need rain and are excited that some is finally, finally, finally going to fall, I don't think we should be expecting a repeat of the May and June flooding over a big area. Maybe in some isolated areas? Sure. And, could this be the time the models are 100% correct and we all get slammed with heavy rain? I guess it could happen, but it still seems unlikely to me. Last night Steve LaNore already had seen the big rainfall on the models, but stuck to his forecast that we'd likely see far smaller amounts locally. I have faith in his forecasting. I hope the local mets in southern OK and northern TX are right and that most of us see only 2-5". I'd hate to see anyone get 8-12" in one week. That would be nothing but trouble.

What is wrong with our weather here? (That's an age-old question, for sure.) Why can't we just get an inch of rain a week, instead of going three months with almost no rain and then getting a whole lot all at once?

If we do get stunning amounts of rainfall over a large area, will we all freak out and declare that El Nino has arrived early? (grin)

I just want for some rain to fall before any more of our trees and shrubs die. As it is, we've lost a few in this dry spell, I believe, although they could only be dormant and not actually dead. Time will tell.

Dawn

4.5" in my rain gauge this morning. And strange enough, my plants have not floated away yet, I guess the ground was able to soak it all up.

We had 4.9" in our rain gauge this morning and light rain has fallen since then so I imagine we're at 5" and counting. It did soak in fairly well, but I watched a lot of it run off downhill during the heaviest part of the storm when we got about 2.9" in less than two hours. It is a relief to finally have some drought relief. All the big cracks in the ground haven't closed up, but some of them almost have, while others still are more than an inch wide.

I wondered how everyone was doing. We got about a third of an inch, but misty rain all day.

Finally received some rain here this week, 1.75" Tuesday night and 2.25" Wednesday night. Soaked in very nicely. Amounts around the local area ranged from 1.90" to 7.0". Winter wheat that has been planted looks really good. Of course we had hay delivered Monday and didn't get it all stacked before the rain, but I think the round bales are pretty tight so they should be okay.

Glad none of us are on the western side of Mexico - Hurricane Patricia is nothing to be messing with!

Mary

My rain gauge only had 3/4", but it is not in a good location.

I pulled most of my okra and planted wheat and rye in its spot today, that should tell you that we have not had a lot of rain here yet. I hope we have more on the way.

For some reason my remote rain gauge stopped transmitting last night so I went out and stood a straight sided can in the garden after we'd gotten maybe 1/4-1/2" This morning the can had about an inch. We were needing it though not as badly as some others. We had almost 3 inches early in September and nothing since.

Go 1 1/4" here in our part of SW OKC . It was slow and all soaked in. It was really nice. I hope hurricane Patricia stays south. I hate to watch Texas get hit so hard but we don't need it here.

Hope everybody got what they needed.

Rain in Southern and SE Oklahoma and North Texas! I held off commenting until I saw some numbers for the SE corner. I know it wasn't much for some, but it came.

Dawn, I hope it puts a dent in your droughty zone.

Yay!

Fat lady hasn't sung, yet !

Mary, Glad y'all finally got some good rain there. I was watching Patricia all day yesterday, simply amazed at how quickly she strengthened and how strong she got. Now we just have to watch and see where her moisture plume goes....maybe south Texas? I hope the folks in Mexico come through with as little damage, destruction and death as possible.

There's another 1.05" in the rain gauge this morning so we now are at 6.10" for this rain event. It is our first good rainfall in three months, and our first rainfall at all in 31 days. I don't know if it will take us all the way out of drought, but I'm pretty sure it will knock us out of Extreme Drought, and likely Severe Drought as well.

Ironically, even though we have spent the last three months in various stages of flash drought, going from Abnormally Dry to Extreme Drought very quickly, this week's rainfall just pushed us over the edge.....setting a new Annual Rainfall Record for our county. We now have surpassed 1990's record rainfall of 59.28". Back in early July we had thought we'd break the record in July or August but then the rain just stopped and didn't fall again in a decent amount until this week. I do think it crazy that we have simultaneously had the rainiest year ever here and yet spent a substantial part of the year in either Abnormally Dry or drought conditions anyhow. We have spent too much time at grass fires and hay field fires the last 10-12 days, so I'm relieved we are wet again.

It is still raining but is very light rain and I don't think we'll get much more. For the last 24 hours the rain has progressively shifted more and more to the south.

I feel bad for the folks in Texas. If you aren't following the news, to our south and to our west in Texas, tremendous rainfall has occurred and widespread, destructive flash flooding has been occurring. From Dallas southward, particularly in Corsicana, huge rainfall has caused huge problems, but high water rescues have been occurring in many areas across the state.

I don't know if this rain will cause the winter wheat to sprout here or not. The farmers here have had their fields plowed since August. I'm not sure how many of them put seed in the ground, but I've only seen one plowed wheat field in our area that seemed to have something green sprouting in it. All the others were just bare, reddish-brown soil.

And, did y'all notice? Frost Warning up for the panhandle, a reminder to us all that October is flying by and our gardens soon will be dealing with frosts and freezes.

I was hoping more of this moisture would make its way further north in OK, but it just didn't happen. I wish those of you who have been about as dry as us had also gotten some of this glorious rain. I'm glad we got it, even though it means I am endlessly mopping up muddy dog and cat paw prints, and human foot prints, every time somebody goes out and comes back in again. I'd still rather have rain than not have it.

Dawn

Got another 1" of rain since my last check-in, so that is at least 5.5". Starting to lightly sprinkle here again, and I still have wee little sprouts in my garden!

I'm glad they didn't wash away.

I got two inches in two days. I need more!

I only got about 3/4 of an inch, but anything helps.

I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. Time to try for some home made spaghetti sauce.

Yay!

I have a pile of ripe ones on the table myself, and today I'm going to use them to make some sort of tomato-based soup---maybe Chicken Tortilla Soup, or Taco Soup, or perhaps a white chili with tomatoes, tomatilos, green chiles and chicken.

With the versatility of tomatoes, you can use them in so many ways. I've been cooking a lot with them all summer, and put up tons of salsa. We still have pasta sauce from last year so I didn't can any this year, but I have gallon bags of tomatoes in the freezer for winter cooking and I always use some of those frozen ones to make pasta sauce in winter. I love the smell of tomatoes cooking down into pasta sauce slowly all day long---it makes the house smell delicious, especially on a dreary cold winter day when the garden is just a memory and a new harvest of fresh tomatoes is still months away.

I always go slowly with the last of the fall tomatoes, using them as sparingly as I can. It is almost an obsession with me trying to make them last as long as possible because once the fall tomatoes are all gone, fresh tomatoes are so many months away. The day we eat the very last fresh tomato of autumn is just a really sad day.

Recipes, we want recipes. Maybe start a new thread? I've never been successful with tortilla soup. And I love tacos, so taco soup sounds good.

Here we go again. Lots of rain coming. Hope everybody gets what they need. It looks like it will warm up next week, so you vegitable gardeners should have a little more time to harvest some goodies.

Yeah, that's good (the warmth). I still have more tomatoes that are turning.

Another 2.75" here so far today. Last week's rain wiped out our drought, and this week's rain may knock us out of the "Abnormally Dry" category and back down to normal.

Another rain system is due next week.

If the rain last week, this week and next week is not being contributed to in some way by El Nino, then heaven help us when El Nino really does arrive.

I don't know when the climate/weather Powers-That-Be are going to say that El Nino has indeed begun influencing our rainfall here in TX/OK, but we unscientific types here at our house have declared El Nino now is in effect at our place.....and down in Texas. Last week the heaviest rain fell south of us in Corsicana, TX (with almost 22" in some parts of Navarro County) and today it is falling from San Antonion to Austin, where some areas have had rainfall falling at a rate of 4-6" per hour, flash flooding is ongoing, high water rescues are occurring, schools are closed, etc.

If this isn't El Nino affecting the rainfall patterns this autumn then how much worse is it going to get?

We now have new mud on top of the old mud, but I'd rather have mud than dust. Hope the rest of you get rain today too.

I was very glad to see you get a good amount of rain, Dawn. We're wet. Again. I'm just hoping it doesn't get too close to freezing so I can nab the rest of the tomatoes in good order.

Still raining here in SW OKC. I've been soaking wet three times today. I think it's time to pull out the Frog Toggs. Haven't checked the rain gauge yet, so not sure of the amount. I agree with Dawn this is the beginning of El Niño. We need the moisture before we get our first hard freeze, and looking at next weeks forcast I don't know how soon that will be.

Spent the morning at my grandsons pre-school Halloween party, it was a blast. The excitement they have is contagious. ha ha

hpoe you got it if you needed it!

Bon, There are ways to save your tomatoes from the first frost/freeze, including covering them up very well with blankets or sheets. Cover them in the afternoon so they'll hold in the heat, or use floating row cover if you've got it. Often, if you get the tomato plants through that first frosty or freezing cold night or two, you get another 2-6 weeks of Indian Summer weather. Or, if freeze or frost (or snow) is inevitable and you don't think you can cover them up well enough to protect them, pull up the plants, roots and call. Shake off or wash off all the dirt. Bring the plants into a heated building where the temperature will at least stay above freezing. I like to hang mine upside down in the unheated (but well-insulated) garage or in the tornado shelter. The fruit will ripen slowly over the next 1-4 weeks and you can pick them and use them/eat them as desired. Or, pick all the fruit. Lay them in a single layer in a cardboard box lined with newspaper. (Some people wrap them with newspaper or tissue paper to keep them from touching, which lessens the spread of diseases that might cause rot.) Keep the box in an area that is cool and dry and stays above freezing. (Under the bed is fine as long as you don't forget they are there!) Check them often and remove individual tomatoes as they break color and let them finish ripening up on the kitchen counter.

The rain today has been nice, but really too much on top of last week's 6+". The rain all afternoon has been light and sporadic, so we sit now at just over 3". I'm kinda ready for it to be over, or to at least see some sunshine, but I think we're out of luck on seeing the sun this evening. Maybe we'll get some sunshine sometime tomorrow. My only complaint with rainy/snowy winters is that I really need to see some sunshine every day.

Stockergal, Three times is three times too many. I only carried an umbrella out with me when I went out to feed the chickens and get the mail and such, but it kept 90% of me dry. The rain here is a cold rain and I wouldn't want to get soaked to the skin if I could avoid it.

I bet the Halloween party with the children was a hoot.

I still see rain on the radar coming my way and then heading north from here so I'd say it certainly isn't over yet. Our chance of rain for today was 100% and for tonight it is 90%. I know we needed rain, but I'm 100% hoping to see sunshine tomorrow.

All hail El Nino---bringer of beautiful rain showers, flood advisories, flood warnings, and cars that mysteriously slide off wet roadways (which kept OHP down here in southern OK really busy today). Except when you're actually being flooded, rainy/cool is way better than dry/hot any and every day of the year.

Dawn

Chickens getting wet. Dawn, you mentioned feeding your chickens today in the rain. How bad is it for them to get wet? (I've looked this up, of course, but the info is contradictory). Here, in Oklahoma in October, how bad is it for them to get wet? My champion layer, Marjorie looked unhappy and didn't even eat the bread I threw out to them. They're tucked in the coop now, all cuddled up. No one gave me an egg today either.

The only thing left in my garden are pumpkins--although there is only one fruit. Lots of peas. A few pepper plants and watermelons. And one yellow squash. Oh, and the herbs.

I love rainy days except I worry about the animals. The dogs are miserable because they have to stay inside...no walks today. The chickens look messy and cold.

Hazel, Most chickens are smart enough to stay in the coop if the combination of rain plus cool temperatures is in the range that will cause them to get hypothermia. During the last really strong El Nino (1997-1998), it was rainy in Texas in the summer and my brother's chickens stayed out in the rain on a rainy, cool late June day and got soaking wet and a bunch of them died of hypothermia. Mine have never been that stupid though. (And he did have a coop, but they chose not to go into it.) That is the first and only time that I've seen chickens die of hypothermia and we've had chickens since the mid-1990s.

I prefer that the chickens stay dry, but sometimes they have other ideas. Yesterday I gave them food and fresh water in the morning when it was raining pretty hard, but left the coop closed up (it is very big) so they couldn't leave it. Once we got a good break in the rain (which came in waves all day), I finally let them out. By then it was afternoon and they would roam around, free-ranging, in the yard until it started raining, and then they'd run back inside when raindrops started falling. In all the years we've lived here, I've never lost a chicken on a rainy day, so I think they tolerate it well enough as long as they have enough sense to come in out of the rain.

The laying of eggs can taper off as we head into the shorter day-length of late autumn and winter. Some chickens just flat out stop laying in winter, but others lay all winter long. You can encourage your chickens to lay eggs all winter if you put a light in their coop and leave it on all day, but turn it off at night so they can sleep. We use a light fixture with a wire cage across the front of it so that, if they happen to knock down the light fixture (it is clamped to a beam at the top of the coop and sometimes they like to sit on that beam), the bulb itself cannot touch the bedding and set the coop on fire.

My garden is in about the same stage as yours, with the herbs being happier than anything else. I harvested the last watermelons last week in advance of the rain. Since we now have received approximately 10" of rain in the last 8-10 days, I feel like the tomatoes on the plants now are not going to have good flavor, but I'll just leave them alone until they ripen and see what we get. I did harvest about a dozen tomatoes in between last week's 6" and this week's 4" of rain and their flavor wasn't as badly watered down as I had feared. It looks like no freezing weather is imminent down here, so we should get tomatoes for at least another couple of weeks. Any year that we can harvest tomatoes from late April/early May all the way through November is what I consider a really great tomato year, so this has been a great tomato year.

Our dogs are used to going on long walks on their leashes in autumn and winter (and part of spring), but generally not in summer once the heat sets in. We have 3 adult dogs (and two rowdy puppies who don't walk on leashes yet although they like to chew on each other's collars, which is a problem) and I walk each of the adult dogs 1-2 miles every morning. No walking yesterday, so it was an official Depressed Dog Day at our house on Friday, and I missed the walking as much as they did. I didn't lay around with my chin on the floor moping like the dogs did though. The cats were almost as bad. They sat on the porch, huddled up against the wall of the house to stay dry, and watched it rain for hours. When it would stop raining, they'd run out and play in the yard, which was a lake, and then come indoors all wet and miserable. As soon as they dried out, they wanted to sit on the porch and watch the next wave of rain fall. At one point, cats and chickens all were sitting on the porch railing together watching it rain and it was hard to decide which ones looked more depressed (or angry). It was one of those things where they all looked miserable but refused to go indoors like intelligent animals.

I know we need the rain. It has wiped out our drought, and I think this week's rain will get us out of the "Abnormally Dry" category on next week's Drought Monitor, but if we are going to have months of this, which is sort of typical in an El Nino winter, then our dogs, cats and chickens are going to need therapy or they're going to stay depressed all winter. They don't mind a cold or even snowy winter (my chickens love snow for reasons I don't understand) but they are not overly fond of prolonged rainy weather. I can handle the rain. I even put on a raincoat and walk the dogs on rainy days, preferably in between rain showers, but I need to have some sunshine every now and then too. Yesterday I had the lights on in every room of the house, even in rooms we humans weren't in, because I was trying to create fake sunshine.

I'm glad ya'll are soaked even though it's cold and icky-feeling. The kids are getting cabin fever and asked to go outside. Normally, I'd bundle them up and commit to a good laundry session after, but it's just to the bone-chilling cold even tho the weather is only cool. It's just the transitioning from summer to winter. Most years, this comes later. I think that's why everyone is hollering about el nino.

Oh thank you for the tips on the tomatoes. I'll move the row covers over and see how well I can work with that. Right now is like the most perfect as they're coming in a few at a time atop their hugel beds growing just fine even though there are weeds everywhere. I know the growth can change, but gosh darn I love having the produce aisle right outside. I keep skinning them and reducing and storing or cooking right away. Spaghetti sauce, taco sauce, tomato pesto. It's awesome.

Bon, It was an icky, cold-feeling day even though the temperatures weren't that bad. I think our bodies are still in the drought-dry air-hot weather mode so we think we are colder than we are when the air is cool and moist, if that makes sense.

I have a pile of tomatoes on the table and need to do something with them because we're getting more than we can eat fresh right now. I'm thinking about dehydrating these to make sun-dried tomatoes (well, without the sun).

It is fun having a produce aisle outside. My favorite thing about the garden when it is producing is that I don't plan meals, make a shopping list and go to the store. Instead, I harvest the garden and then plan the meal based on what the garden is providing. Even after the garden is done for the year and we're all frozen here, I still shop my pantry first for stored food and then try to build the meals around the surplus from the garden. It isn't quite as spontaneous as harvesting first and then planning, but the longer it keeps me out of the grocery store produce aisles, the happier I am.

The saddest day of the year is when I figure out there is not one fresh thing from the garden left....not one potato (we still have quite a few in dry storage)...or onion, tomato, squash....whatever. Still, even when that day comes, we have food that is root cellared, canned, frozen or dehydrated. It isn't the same as fresh, but it still is homegrown. I absolutely hate buying produce at the grocery store because the voice in my head is saying "I can grow this...." even if it is something that I didn't even grow this year. Just because I can grow it doesn't mean I did. lol.

I know the first frost is approaching within the next few weeks and I still have herbs to harvest and preserve before it arrives.

I saw a cute apron at the Mother Earth News Fair. It said, "I eat local...because I can." So do I, but some years I can a lot more than others. This year I hadn't planned to do much canning, but did about 200 jars because I had so many cucumbers.

One day I hope to have that much home grown food stored up. This year was a little disappointing but there's always next year. I bought a pressure cooker and a dehydrator, but so much of my garden didn't make it though May. It's okay, though, I learned a lot and I'm ready for next year.

My hen has a crop problem I've decided. I'll spare you the gross details...but I may be blind after gently massaging her crop and stuff spewed out and landed in my eye. I'm trying to determine how to treat her. I can't seem to find a vet that treats chickens around here. Currently she's sitting in an old dishpan in the hall bathroom. My husband will be thrilled to find her there when he gets home from work tonight.

Where are you Hazel? Then maybe we can help find a vet. Have you talked to the feed store to see where people go?

I'm...well, we are IN south OKC, but have a Norman address and Moore schools. So, anywhere in Norman, Moore or South OKC would be great. I haven't talked to the feed store. I can try that too. I've looked online and asked our vet.

Vets that do birds aren't easy. Call Wildcare Oklahoma wild life rehabbers. 405 872 9338. They should know vets that work on birds. I only know of 2 in the tulsa area, though there may be more that work with parakeets and the like.

Ther is a vet in Norman. I can't think of her name, but her office is on Main Street where it dead end on the west side of town. She does birds, lizards you name it. If she can't help she would know where to send you. I'm sorry I cannot think of here name.

I just thought of it!! Dr. Harrington at All Pets. Hope she can help.

I hope you can find a vet. In all the years we've had chickens, I've never had to take one to the vet so have no idea if any of our local vets treat chickens.

I seem to have all the luck and I've only owned chickens since March! So far, we've dealt with fowl pox--but the dry type, so it wasn't bad. And now Marjorie with her crop problem. I've tried a couple of "old fashioned" remedies and think she's better. BUT, someone is breaking all the eggs now. Sigh. I actually had to buy eggs at the store yesterday. Grrrr! I put some ceramic eggs and golf balls in the nesting boxes hoping to stop their fun.

And I'm sorry I made this a thread about chickens.

Is it one of your own chickens breaking the eggs or is something else getting in there? Can you tell? I hope Marjorie will be okay, and think you probably solved her crop problem. Those old folk remedies normally do work. You know, when our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had chicken issues, they took care of it themselves and didn't go hauling chickens off to visit the vet. My grandfather, a thrifty farmer and rancher, would have had a fit if my grandmother had wanted to take a chicken to the vet. He didn't believe in paying someone else to solve a problem you if you could fix it yourself. Chickens are usually pretty tough and we've never really had disease issues. Most of our chickens, if they survive the predators that are all too common here, live for years and years and die of old age. My brother did have trouble during the last big El Nino (1997-1998) when it was wet all the time at his place. His chickens were sick a lot, and several of them died of hypothermia in June or July after a big, cold rainy spell. That is not typical in this part of the country though, where we usually are hot and dry and the chickens (but not necessarily the turkeys) have enough sense most of the time to stay out of the rain.