I'm happy too! I'm still freaked out by last spring and suspicious of rain. Just because so many of my plants drowned. I'm so happy that it rained for awhile and then we had several hours of no rain. The dogs got to go outside to play and we took them for a walk. And instead of drowning, everything looks happy and healthy... and things have sprouted. I"m glad your plants are happy, James!

Looks like more to come and hopefully it will continue to be the nice slow rain we had today.

Slow steady rain to a total of 1.3" so far in too events. So happy. I just haven't kept enough water on my garden this year and my poor lettuce has been stunted.

Only about 2" at our place so far, with more to come. Northwestern Love County had up to and possible more than 5" in some places as did the adjacent portions of Carter and Jefferson counties. We have a river flood warning in effect for a few days, and some state highways and county roads are closed due to flooding, washouts, etc. Other than that, it was a lovely rainy Sunday. I appreciate the rain but miss the sunshine.

The panhandle had enough rain, that apparently the Beaver River is running for the first time in decades.

Beaver River running

Wow. That is incredible. I didn't even know there was a Beaver River there. Some of the panhandle got great rain, and some did not. It probably really hurts now if someone is in the area that got a lot less. I think Texas County got the most rain, but also had tornadoes, hopefully out in the middle of nowhere so that there wasn't much damage. We were in a dry slot and mostly watched rain pass to our west and east, but I'm not complaining. We got enough and I did not want a river running through my garden.

The Red River at the Gainesville Bridge was around 8.5' before the rain began. Because of all the heavy rain upstream the last few days, it is expected to crest around 34.5' this week. That is crazy, but it is a relatively slow rise in the river compared to what happened in Houston's bayous today. We have a few bayous here in Love County that funnel water to the river and one of them, Walnut Bayou, is overflowing and has shut down a state highway. I bet I can count on one hand the number of times the Walnut Bayou has overflowed since we moved here, but it has happened fairly often in recent years....including last year and this year.

Dawn we got 5.5 inches Friday night along with two tornadoes and quite a bit of 1/2" hail. Then another .7 on Saturday and the last I checked over .5 today. More than we had in a whole year 3 to 5 years ago. One tornado passed 4 miles east of town and one 7 miles west. Most everyone I've heard of got close to an inch or more. I was headed to Leedey when it hit. Stuck around awhile and they said the first storm was headed from Stratford, TX to Texhoma and up 54 to Guymon. Then about the time I got to Guymon they said when it got to about Texhoma it turned straight north almost and headed our way. I had an appointment in Leedey on Saturday morning so kept heading east and kept in contact to see what was happening. Around Leedey the amounts ranged mainly from 2.2-3.0 inches with one or two higher amounts mixed in. Heading home about 20 miles NW of Woodward the rain amounts dropped off and ranged from .5 to 1.0 for a long stretch. The lowest I've heard over that whole stretch was .5. So at least everyone got wet. There is some damage and I'm sure we will notice more in the upcoming days. Been fixing things at work. A lot of flooding. And with the continued rain we haven't started to dry out yet. I hope to get in the garden soon. Jay

After I posted I looked at the link Lisa had posted. I have seen many of the videos that are around. This creek/bridge is 10 miles south of Elkhart and a half mile north of where my nephew lives in his parents old house. It hasn't ran in a long time but came to life again last weekend. I can remember in the early 70's when we got a huge rain like that and it drowned a local man about two miles upstream from that bridge. It can get wicked when it does flow.

Now we need some sunshine! My garden is quite muddy and it just started raining again.

Jay, I was watching the radar and thinking y'all had a bit of excitement going on up there. I remember that extra-dry year about 3-5 years ago. That's when I decided that it "never" rains up there, or so it seemed. Until Lisa posted that link, I didn't know y'all had rivers or creeks. I just thought y'all had dust and dirt and soil. I'm glad the kids up there will have a chance to see water flowing through creeks or rivers so they'll know what that looks like. Y'all are so crazy dry most of the time that this past week's rainfall must seem like a deluge.

I hope you can get into your garden soon and get things going. My garden is almost entirely planted, except for things that need soil temperatures of 70 or above, and the rain has been holding us back from reaching that level. I think the soil will warm up quickly once sunlight returns. I just hope we recognize the sun when we see it again.

In both Carter and Love Counties, the road closures and damaged roadways are almost the same ones flooded, washed out, damaged and destroyed in last year's flooding, and some of them had only been reopened for a brief time before they were damaged and destroyed again. The last time I looked, the Red River had come up almost 20' in the last 4 or 5 days, but it is not even close to last year's record flood levels. I imagine Lake Texoma is going to rise quite a bit as all the water flows into it, and the road over the spillway at Lake Murray has been closed since last week. We got pounded by rain, thunder and lighting overnight so I imagine my already very muddy garden has achieved a whole new level of mudiness this morning. Because of all the standing water in there, all I do is go in there and harvest cool-season crops and then leave. Once it dries out a bit more and the rain stops falling (we're expecting more tonight and tomorrow morning), I've got an organic fire ant killer to use to try to get all the new fire ant mounds out of the garden's raised beds.

Hazel, Hang in there. Sunshine is in the forecast for the weekend if not before then. The mud? It's not going anywhere for a while, but if we hit the 80s this weekend, that should start to dry it up. We have water standing everywhere here so I don't go outside for anything at all unless I'm wearing muck boots, rain boots or waterproof hiking boots. It is ugly footwear season now, but I prefer dry feet to wet feet. The chickens and turkeys don't mind the water, but I keep watching to see if they are developing webbed feet.

I worked so incredibly hard last week to get ahead of this rain, not only with planting but also with mulching and weeding but it still drives me crazy that it is too wet to do anything outdoors. I liked feeling caught up on garden chores, even if being caught up only lasted for a few days. I bet all this rain is really making the weeds grow on the edges of the garden along the fenceline where I haven't had a chance to get the weedy fenceline under control. It is frustrating that it is too wet to do much of anything now, but also would be equally frustrating if no rain was falling and we were having to water the garden this early in the season. At least this rain should have put an end to the fire season and also should have knocked back the severity of the drought and the pre-drought conditions.

Dawn

Dawn yes it is nice to get a good start. Actually the two previous years have been above normal for us. I recorded 18 plus inches in 2014 and 22 plus in 2015. Our ten year average before the 7 year drought had been around 16. Hope Scott sees this as he stated a few times he didn't think we ever got a rain over an inch.

Yes nice that the fire season should be over for a while. We had one bad one here. But from the Laverne area east it seems fires are a part of the late winter and spring season. I'm just now getting used to that. They are a weekly and sometimes daily event.