Thursday, July 24, 2008

Longwinded Dolly

Prayer was answered yesterday as Dolly landed to the north of Brownville. Yes, it was no picnic down there, but it could have been worse.

A surprising feature of Dolly is her reach. I’m about 100 miles from Dolly but a strong arm of her has persisted over the area for over 12 hours. The result: about 7 inches of rain and very strong winds, up to 50 MPH, maybe more. In fact, the winds got stronger right after she made landfall. I put some weights on my trampoline for fear it would flip over. The winds stayed strong overnight. Only now does the weather seem to be relenting.

I heard some surfers went out yesterday. Birds had more sense as they took shelter at my place. A flock of Black Terns hung out on my cove. I’ve never seen that before. They are definitely sea birds not bay denizens. Speaking of which, the bay got higher than I’ve ever seen it. It was strange seeing rough water where it’s usually dry.

Dolly is now moving toward Laredo to the upstream of Falcon Reservoir. Falcon has been very low for many years. So hopefully it will take a lot of the water from Dolly that would otherwise flood the Rio Grande Valley. The Valley has enough flood issues now as it is.

No comments: