{"id":9337,"date":"2015-05-16T12:56:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T12:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9337"},"modified":"2015-05-16T12:56:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T12:56:29","slug":"was-that-thunder-lightning-and-rain-that-kept-me-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9337","title":{"rendered":"Was that thunder, lightning and rain that kept me up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It’s been a good while since we had a night like the one we just experienced.<\/p>\n

We were up and down like Yo-Yos all night. The lightning would flash. The thunder would roar. The rain would pound the house.<\/p>\n

We awoke this morning and found another half-inch of rain in the gauge.<\/p>\n

And it was still raining!<\/p>\n

OK. The weather forecasters are all a-flutter over the rain. Amarillo’s year-to-date rainfall — I think — is about double the normal amount. It’s about eight times more than we had a year ago at this time.<\/p>\n

Is the drought over? Have we turned the corner? Is it time now to start running our residential irrigation systems flat-out, full bore, with not a worry in the world?<\/p>\n

Guess again.<\/p>\n

The TV weathermen and women aren’t saying anything of the sort. They’re careful to avoid sending the wrong message, although they do seem to get a big carried away with their joy at the rain that’s come our way. El Nino, that Pacific Ocean current phenomenon, has returned, according to Dave Oliver, KFDA-TV NewsChannel 10’s chief meteorologist, and he thinks it’s going to persist through the summer.<\/p>\n

El Nino’s effect is to drive moisture from the coast inland, bringing all that rain we’ve been praying for our way.<\/p>\n

Let’s not get too excited about the drought. We’ve got that underground aquifer that doesn’t recharge at nearly the rate we’re drawing it down. It’s still going to take centuries<\/em> for it to fill back up.<\/p>\n

Still, let us be thankful and grateful for what we’re getting.<\/p>\n

Do you think those prayers we’ve all sent up have been answered?<\/p>\n\n

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It’s been a good while since we had a night like the one we just experienced. We were up and down like Yo-Yos all night. The lightning would flash. The thunder would roar. The rain would pound the house. We awoke this morning and found another half-inch of rain in the gauge. And it was … Continue reading Was that thunder, lightning and rain that kept me up?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1429,1541,3294,3488,4609],"class_list":["post-9337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-doppler-dave-oliver","tag-el-nino","tag-newschannel-10","tag-panhandle-rain","tag-texas-drought"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}