It's cold in Texas

In the last post, I said we were going to see a Laser Spectacular show. We did, and it was not bad. There were plenty of lasers being flung about the room and making pretty patterns on a projection screen, alongside regular projections of (mostly) the Pink Floyd videos that went with the songs they played. The music was LOUD though, unecessarily so really. But we enjoyed it.

Friday night saw the weather really coming in though, and we got home just in time before the rain started in earnest. When we woke up on Saturday morning, the rain had been hammering down all night and continued to do so all day. The lake and culvert outside the apartment were totally flooded. We think this is designed - when it rains, there's so much water it has to go somewhere, preferably in a controlled fashion. There are warning signs around the lake that say the area is prone to flooding.

Here's a couple of before-and-after shots showing just how much it flooded. The first one shows the lake run-off; if you look carefully you can see the water is almost a second lake all the way to the end in the first shot!


After the water had receded:

A staircase on the edge of the lake itself:

The same staircase at normal water levels:

I say normal water levels - it actually seemed like the water had dropped more than usual when the flood receded. Alan wonders if there was a blockage somewhere that the pressure of water may have shifted.

Saturday night saw us at Mark and Jessica's house for a few beers and games of pool, with Micah and Brandi and some other friends of Mark's. This was a very pleasant evening. It was nice to get out of the house too, as we'd been stuck in all day due to the incessant rain.

Now the rain has passed but it has turned very cold. The weather charts show a big ice storm covering a huge chunk of central USA, most of central and northern Texas. We are getting the southern edge of it. We went out at lunchtime to get some supplies and I had to wear my big sheepskin jacket. Didn't think I'd be needing that much in Texas!

Here's a bush covered in ice drips:

Here's some icicles forming on our balcony railing:

See, I'm not lying! It's cold outside!

Finally, some random birdlife. Here's a Great Egret that comes regularly to the lake. It was enjoying all the new debris washed up by the floodwaters.


Some years ago, we are told, a person released a couple of parrots into the woods the other side of the UT football fields just by here. Since then, Nature has taken its course, and there are many parrots! They nest in the lighting towers in the football fields. The other day I was walking past and there must have been 40-50 of them on the ground. Here's a few of them:


Right, I'm away to turn the heating on...