The Rains finally Came

Last Thursday (8/11/2011) we received the first measurable rain at our house since October 2010. Thursday night a thunderstorm came through that dropped more than 2.5 inches of rain in about a three hour period. Just for an example, this first picture is of a lake (or what was left of it) that we walk the dog around each evening.

As you can see there is not much water there. This photo was taken on Thursday evening about 45 minutes before the rain. In the 10+ years we have lived in Lubbock, we have never seen the lake this low, so, it deserved a picture. Below is how the lake looked two days after the storm.



A major difference. The water level rising has increased the distance of our walk as the lake has enlarged so much. This is just slightly higher than the "normal" lake level. We hope to see it stay this way for a while, at least until our next rain fall.

The down side of the storm was the damage that it did. One apartment house fire and two family home fires were started by lighting. Our next door neighbors took a lighting strike to their Pecan Tree in the back yard that created a 2 inch wide split almost the entire length. It also took out a control board in their HVAC system, the garage door opener, their cable Internet box, and several digital to analog converters on their Televisions. That tree is less than 60 feet from our back fence. We did lose a video conversion box due to that strike, but that is minor damage compared to everyone else.