Weather

Rick Perry and Texas Politicians Pressuring Mexico to Pay its Water Debt

Mexico owes Texas water. And as the current drought presses onward, Texas politicians are trying to turn up the heat to get Mexico to pay. Last Friday, the Texas House voted unanimously on a resolution that the federal government should pressure Mexico deliver water to the United States. The same w ... More >>

As the Texas Lege Tackles $2 Billion Water Legislation, Drought Records Are Set

The Texas House and Senate took up legislation Tuesday to address a drought-induced water crisis. A proposed bill out of the House would pull $2 billion from the state's Rainy Day Fund to implement a 50-year water plan. Municipalities and water districts could apply for funds the state would priorit ... More >>

35 Denton Outdoor Stages Being Evacuated Because of Severe Winds and Hail: Live Blog and Schedule Updates

Update: Killer Mike will also be performing at The Hive, at 8 p.m. There is a severe thunderstorm warning in effect in Denton right now, possibly bringing with it high winds and a risk of hail. A.Dd is performing in their scheduled, 5 p.m. slot at one of the outdoor stages, but the Cannabinoids ha ... More >>

State Water Planners are Giving Lip Service to Conservation. Environmental Groups Want Them to Do More.

One of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Austin this legislative season is that the state needs to take major steps to meet the state's long-term water needs. The arithmetic -- exploding population historic drought increasingly stressed water supply -- is simply too stark to ignore. The m ... More >>

Texas' Lone Cloud Seeder Says Cloud Seeding Can Help Solve the State's Water Needs

Hidden deep within the bureaucratic folds of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which devotes most of its resources to overseeing cosmetologists, air conditioner repairmen, auctioneers and the like, is the state's weather modification bureau. It's not nearly as post-apocalyptic as it ... More >>

The Legislature is Considering Letting Cities Sue Homeowners For Overwatering Their Lawns

As it stands, anyone caught watering their lawns more than twice a week and/or during daytime hours and/or outside the official watering days ordained by City Hall faces a fine of between $250 and $2,000. As of last summer, the city had handed down slightly more than a handful. But this is Texas, w ... More >>

National Weather Service: Expect A Warm, Dry Winter, North Texas

Last winter was a godsend. After surviving the driest year in Texas history, we got one of the wettest winters on record. Since April, though, North Texas has been racking up rain deficits, according to the National Weather Service's winter outlook. October was drier than usual, and November saw vi ... More >>

Hey Dallas, Don't Get Used to that Cheap Water

We've had it good, no doubt about it. Ever since the drought of the '50s, when Dallas water planners set forth, constructing and acquiring the rights to reservoirs that would feed the city's growth for the coming decades, we haven't had to worry. Even as Lake Travis contracted to a muddy puddle in 2 ... More >>

A&M Says 301 Million Trees Died in 2011 Drought. Dallas Arborist Thinks Real Number is Much Larger.

The record-breaking drought that Texas endured in 2011 wasn't good for much of anything. Farmers and ranchers suffered, as did the people in towns whose water supplies ran dry. And let's not forget the owners of lakefront property whose lots fronted an empty stretches of parched earth. See also: A ... More >>

Is Dallas Enforcing its Watering Restrictions? Just Ask the House of Blues and Ursuline

Last December, with Texas in the midst of one of the worst droughts on record and with lake levels dropping to worrying lows, the city of Dallas implemented Stage 1 water restrictions, meaning residents and businesses could only drench their grass twice per week. Even as North Texas was emerging fro ... More >>

City Council to Discuss How to Reconcile Developing the City With Conserving Our Water

City Hall's touting the Urban Reserve as an ideal development given our weather and water needs.​In one way, shape or form we've noted most of what the city council will discuss this afternoon during its briefing. But there's one briefing we've overlooked: Water Conservation and the Land Developme ... More >>

Dallas May Be Out of the Drought (For Now), But Watering Restrictions Are Far From Over

​With the release of its latest map this morning, the U.S. Drought Monitor made it official: A few weeks' worth of heavy rain have officially removed Dallas-Fort Worth from the historic drought that has most of the state bone-dry. (Watch the 12-week animation here.) And per the AP's breaking-news ... More >>

Why Is Suhm Asking Council to Extend Watering Restrictions? "Water Sales," In Part.

​When Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm first told the council it was time, at long last, to enact twice-a-week watering restrictions, Dallas's six water-supply reservoirs were about 25 percent depleted. But last week's record rainfall, in addition to other recent wet-weather events, have helped fill ... More >>

Will It Ever Get Really Cold in Dallas This Winter? Well, As a Matter of Fact ... Maybe?

​A few days back the great Alan Melson, KERA's director of interactive, directed his Facebook friends to a great weather-geek (said with all due respect) site where folks are currently having a great debate about whether or not signs point to an icy deep freeze headed toward North Texas toward the ... More >>

Study: In Drought Planning, Water Managers Should Look Further Back Than 1950s

Photo by Brandon Thibodeaux​As we near the end of 2011, let us now look back on the year (without much fondness) and take stock. We racked up one of driest years in recorded history (more on that in a moment). The livestock and agricultural industries took a shuddering blow that, when the fina ... More >>

What's Dallas Water Utilities Director Jody Puckett Most Concerned About? Let's Find Out.

​Late yesterday I got a call back from Dallas Water Utilities Director Jody Puckett, for whom I'd left a message about Irving and the North Texas Municipal Water District's need to buy water from the city. We set up a time to chat this morning, and just got through visiting for a little while abou ... More >>

Assistant City Manager Answers Scott Griggs's Questions About Saving, Selling City's Water

​A couple of weeks back, during those water conservation and watering restriction briefings, council member Scott Griggs had a few questions for Dallas Water Utilities Director Jody Puckett that she wasn't prepared to answer, among them: Is the city presently selling water to gas drillers, and, be ... More >>

Drink In the City Council's Discussion on Conserving (And Selling) Dallas's Water Supply

I was in the middle of watching the city council briefings on water conservation and the Stage 1 watering restrictions yesterday when I got pulled away -- and just when it was getting interesting too. So this morning I started going back to review the tape, beginning just as Sandy Greys ... More >>

A Message from Mary Suhm Concerning Dallas's Role as Region's "Emergency Water Provider"

​So much for all that rain we were promised; there it goes, not even close save for last night's stray raindrops. The not-even-near-miss seems only fitting in advance of tomorrow's briefing before the Dallas City Council, when City Manager Mary Suhm will recommend going to Stage 1, twice-a-week wa ... More >>

Mary Suhm to Recommend Council Implement Stage 1 Watering Restrictions on December 12

Click to enlarge this chart from the drought update that will be discussed by the Dallas City Council on Wednesday.​On November 2, City Manager Mary Suhm told Unfair Park that the city would initiate Stage 1 water restrictions sooner than later; but exactly when, she would not say, only that the c ... More >>

Water Rights Policies At the TCEQ Could Affect Your Lunch

It's tough being a gulf oyster. The BP oil spill devastated Louisiana oyster beds, and then a historic Texas drought reduced river flows into Galveston Bay, seriously increasing the bay's salinity. Predators and disease are thriving and threatening the already hobbled industry. Now the Texas Commis ... More >>

Chatting With a NOAA Meteorologist About This Drought: What It Is and What It Ain't

Photo by Brantley HargroveA stock pond in Archer County​So, what's our problem? Mostly, it's La Nina, that little trollop. She's been messin' with Texas for a long time. And the relationship between her cool Pacific sea-surface temperatures and dry times here is pretty well established. For n ... More >>

"The Fire Threat For the Upcoming Winter Is Expected to Be Considerable."

National Weather Service​Along with the chart you see above, which celebrates (no, wait, that's not the right word) our record-breaking 70th day of temperatures at or above 100, the National Weather Service directs our attention to the latest Drought Information Statement issued a few days ago. Lo ... More >>

What Do "Voluntary" Mean? It Means Dallas Wants Us to Cut Back on Yard Watering. Now.

Dew, the city's water-conservation mascot, is no Perry the Pipe.​Last week, you may recall, I asked Frank Librio, Dallas City Hall spokesman, if Dallas had any plans to follow its neighbors' leads and clamp down on water use. To which he responded: "The lakes are currently 84% full and we continue ... More >>

Hot Hot Heat: CBS Early Show Comes to Town, It Ain't 1980 Yet and Dallas's Drought Plan

​CBS Early Show's Marysol Castro's in town -- can't imagine why. Oh, right. It's hot. Still, not so hot that two high-school footballers can't spend their after-practice hours toiling in the sun -- one on a construction site, the other decorating doorknobs with fliers, both hoping to buy a car. Th ... More >>

Yet Another Reminder of the Tornado of 1957

Courtesy the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Photo Library​From time to time over the years we've revisited the tornado of 1957, which, at the time, was easily the best-documented twister in history. There's even a whole website devoted to the F3 that killed 10 and "carved a sixt ... More >>

An exciting Super Bowl game couldn't rescue North Texas from a disastrous Super Bowl week.

Nothing Rapid About DART in Ice and Snow

​Check me on this. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the outfit that runs the trains, didn't know how to keep their trains running in an ice storm. The same kind of trains operate in winter weather cities all over the world. There's a way to keep them running in an ice storm. But DART didn't know how. L ... More >>

Keep Your Eye On The Sky

A Killer F5 Tornado Rips Through Dallas County -- How Ready Are We for this Nightmare Scenario?

Corps Warns that Trinity River Levees Pose a Flood Risk to Downtown, but is City Hall Listening?

Dust in the Wind? Maybe.

From the city council's Water Conservation and Drought Plan Update, a look at lake levelsOn Wednesday, the Dallas City Council will discuss updating the city's 4-year-old water conservation and drought contingency plans, as this is shaping up to be yet another dry, dusty year. The update is necessar ... More >>

Update: Beer And Cheese Pairing Canceled

The Mozzarella Company's beer and cheese pairing mentioned in yesterday's Hash Over post and scheduled for this evening has been canceled in anticipation of tonight's Chicago-like weather forecast.

"State of Disaster": Dallas's Emergency Planners Do Not Like Ike

You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Gustav.

Gustav Isn't Screwing Around, and Neither is the City of Dallas

Items of Interest, Far As You Know

A Flood of Questions

Best Press Release Ever

Whichever Way the Wind Blows, Dude

The Texas Tornadoes

Stormy Weather

Get the know-how to spot and dodge

Flood Blood

Politicians create flooding, not the Bible

Down the River

Dallas is still using flood control money to scam black people

Bad-ass Storm In A Glass

Category 5, Hurricane Grill New Orleans Oyster Bar

Hurricane Warning

There's more to like about the Hurricane Grill than just the 45-ounce hurricanes

$ucker$

Forget Brooklyn -- Dallas' own Trinity River boosters aim to con you out of tax dollars for seven silly bridges

Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, TX

And your little dog, too

Putting the audience in harm's way gives Twister its punch

Good day for a robbery

Garvin McCain claims he can tell you when it's safe to go outside