How dry is it?

Posted by SpiceWare, in Houston 22 August 2011 · 98 views

I take my bike out each evening for about an hour. I wait until 7pm to go out due to the weather we've been having in Houston. We normally see only 4 100+ days per year, but yesterday we tied the record of 32 100+ days in the year. The forecast for the rest of the month calls for 6 more 100+ days.

Besides that, we're seeing a serious lack of rain. Along with Houston, over half the state is experiencing the worse drought ever in recorded history. Due to watering, the yards in the neighborhood don't show how bad the Texas drought is - so I took some photos of the tire swallowing chasms I have to avoid while biking in the easements.

Easements - small one behind my house

This one the HOA put a 2/3rd mile brick trail around

with the drought, the brickwork has been getting messed up.

Rex Dart
Aug 22 2011 12:52 PM

I saw some of that in the Austin area recently. Cracks in the earth big enough to lose a foot in.
And you're in the Sugarland/Missouri City area, right? You're used to day-long thunderstorms so heavy you can't drive 'round this time of year. Yeah, pretty crummy.

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SpiceWare
Aug 22 2011 1:11 PM

I'm in Fresno, located on 6 @ 521, it's between Missouri City and Pearland.

Yep - normally it's raining so heavy we get flooding. Coastal plains are so flat that it makes it difficult to divert water. Large sections of my neighborhood were set aside for flood control. They've been dug down to hold flood water, those are the easements that I bike in. I think they used the dirt from there to raise up the houses as all the homes are elevated with a gentle slope from the house to the road. It seems to work well as I've often seen the houses in the older neighborhood behind mine with water up to their doors, while at my house I've only ever seen it up to the sidewalk.

I'll add some photos of the easements after I ride tonight.

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SpiceWare
Aug 26 2011 9:13 AM

Weird - we got a decent amount of rain yesterday afternoon and when I took the bike out last night the cracks are bigger, and more numerous, than before!

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EricBall
Aug 26 2011 10:38 AM

SpiceWare, on Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:13 AM, said:

Weird - we got a decent amount of rain yesterday afternoon and when I took the bike out last night the cracks are bigger, and more numerous, than before!

Ever water a potted plant where the soil has dried out? The water goes straight through and out the bottom. Rain on dry ground doesn't soak it up, it just erodes it away.