Hurricane Alex Soaking Central Texas

If you are traveling this weekend, please check out your destination using some of the links below.  At this time, the flooding on the Guadalupe River is between Hueco Falls to the Comal River.  However, Canyon Dam is at over capacity and the water flow may increase from the current 284 cfs.

Flooding Below New Braunfels in June 2010

Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service from National Weather Service provides up to date and predicted water levels throughout river basins in Texas.

Real-Time Data for Texas: Streamflow from United State Geological Survey features data from actual gauges on Texas rivers. May be sorted by county. You may also This site includes coastal areas.

Real-Time Data for Texas: Lakes and reservoirs from United State Geological Survey. May be sorted by county.

Have a Happy and SAFE July 4, 2010

Real-Time Reservoir Information from Texas Water Development Board. Collated information from from USGS, IBWC, and USACE websites. View by state, river basin or individual reservoir.

Road Conditions Map from Texas Department of Transportation.  Zoom in on specific areas.

Weather Underground has many maps with current weather, temperature, heat index, windchill, humidity, radar, dew point, wind, visibility, visible satellite, fronts, snow depth, precipitation and jet stream. There is also online weather radio for some Texas cities.

AccuWeather is another great site for Texas weather, including radar, headlines, videos and alerts sent to your cell phone.

New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn flooded in June 2010

Silver River State Park

The last uninhabited crystal clear river in Florida

With Crystal River in our rearview mirrors, we journeyed to Silver River State Park, west of Ocala, Florida.  Silver River bisects Silver River State Park, which covers 5,000 wooded acres.  The campground is on the southwest side of the river.  The remainder of the area is a wilderness preserve.  Silver River is a natural river, with no development on the banks except for the theme park on the headsprings and the state park and the campground on the river.

The headsprings of Silver River are the site of the Silver River Nature Park, Florida’s first theme park.  It was here that the glass-bottom boat was invented in 1878.  Now, you may enjoy a boat ride, zoo, jeep safari and water park.

As luck would have it, it began to rain as we approached Ocala.  We made it to the state park as the thunderstorm hit.  It rained hard, so we were unable to put our boat into the water.  We did bike down to the river to take some photographs.

Here is a link to the slide show on this park. Slide.com appears to have a bug. Click on the link and then select Gallery View if you would like to view photographs of Silver River.  When Slide.com is restored, I will paste the slide show here.

That evening, we discovered that our new trailer leaks, “Like a colander,” as my husband put it.  After a discussion with Heartland, the manufacturer of our Edge M21, we left the trailer in Ocala at a certified Heartland service center.  So, there we were, on a road trip sans travel trailer.  We rented a motel room and watched HBO.

We went to the service center at 1 pm the next day.  At 3 pm, we drove out with our trailer.  According to the service people, all leaks had been fixed.  We had wasted two days on repairs, so we decided not to continue to Saint Augustine, on the Pacific coast.  Instead, we plotted our path along the back roads to Ginnie Springs, home to one of the largest cave diving operations in Florida.

The Mississippi River

We left Lake Fausse Pointe SP, drove north on the Atchafalaya Levee Road and headed across Louisiana on IH-10.  We planned to make fast tracks and stay just south of New Orleans at St. Bernard State Park on the Mississippi River. As we approached the junction of IH-10 and IH-12, the skies opened and it rained so hard we could barely see the road.  We decided to stay on IH-12 and go as far as we could drive.

The weather worsened as we passed Lake Ponchatrain, so we exited the Interstate.  I called Lake Fountainebleau State Park and they were able to accommodate us for one night.  We pulled in, hooked up the electricity and quickly took refuge inside our trailer.  Lake Fountainebleau State Park is a beautiful park on the north shore of Lake Ponchatrain.  The entrance drive is lined with live oak trees.  Due to the rain, we were unable to explore, but I took one picture of the entrance so I would not forget this park.

It was a beautiful park and we recommend it highly.  We stayed one night in a trailer in a pull-through site.

Most of Texas is in the midst of a terrible drought.

• Barton Springs in Austin is only pumping out water at 15 cubic feet per second, the lowest rate ever!
• The San Marcos Springs are flowing at 87 cfs.
• The spring-fed Comal River in New Braunfels is flowing at 168 cfs.
• The Pedernales River is completely dry.
• The Blanco River is not flowing at all.
• The Guadalupe River from Canyon Dam is flowing at 37 cfs.
• Canyon Lake is down by 14 feet.
• Lake Buchanan, first lake  in the chain of  lakes, is down by over 21 feet.
• Lake LBJ, Inks Lake and Lake Austin are constant level lakes at near-normal levels.
• Lake Travis, a popular lake near Austin, Texas is down 40 feet.  All of the boat ramps are out of the water, so there is no public boat launch on the entire lake.
• The Colorado River below Austin is receiving pass-through water for farmers on the coast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center says that the rain in Texas will begin in October and lasting through May 2010.   Evidently, La Niña is responsible for our drought, which will be ended by El Niño.

El Niño, the cyclical warming of the sea surface along the equatorial Pacific, typically occurs every two to five years for a period of about one year each event.  Cooler than normal sea surface temperatures from fall 2008 through February 2009 are  the effect of  La Niña.

In Texas, drought always ends in flood.  Judging by the drought, the flood will be a real gully-washer.

Have you ever wondered what the coastline of your country might be like after the predicted global warming sea level rise? Alex Tingle, from the United Kingdom used Google maps and data from NASA to show you. The maps may be viewed at 0-meter rise up to 14-meter rise. The default setting is 7-meter rise.

Maps of the world after the sea level rise.

Europe N. America S. America Africa SE. Asia China & Japan Australia

How is global warming affecting your state? Click on your state to download a fact sheet about current and future effects of global warming on the people and wildlife in each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you would rather save the PDF to your computer, right click and Save Link As . . .

From National Wildlife Federation Global Warming page

This post is in support of Blog Action Day 10/15/2007

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Tags: blog action day, global warming, your country and global warming, sea level rise