What the --? It's 2am, and that's the tornado siren!

Since I help produce FOX 4's severe weather coverage, I'm usually at the TV station when the big storms roll through. So in my 11 years of living in Flower Mound, I've never been here to hear the Flower Mound tornado sirens go off - until tonight.

Tonight's sudden storm was pretty freakish. It wasn't a classic severe weather situation, but it was a close call. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning about 1:40 this morning because they saw some storm circulation tightening near Trophy Club. As the storm moved through, it didn't maintain that circulation very well, and from what I can see, the tornado threat passed here without any apparent incident.

Actually I got a head start on the sirens. My wife is in charge of the morning news team at a competing TV station, and she was already up getting ready to go to work. She got us up out of bed, and believe it or not, the four of us (plus the dog) actually all fit into the closet below the stairs while the sirens blared.

Back to sleep, I hope. The little one is right next to me, still scared from the big show tonight.

Did the sirens wake you up?

7am Update; The storms overnight dropped another 1.52" of rain here. That makes 3.83" of rain since Friday night.

By the way, it's raining again

12 midnight, and whaddya know? It's raining again. I'm waiting for the little one upstairs to wake up, but so far she's sleeping sound.

For the weekend, we had another 2.31" of rain. So far tonight, at least one half inch by my estimation looking outside the living room window. And now I see the National Weather Service has put Denton County under a Flash Flood Warning.

At least 2 inches of rain

I'm writing this post from an undisclosed airport, as I'm on an undisclosed professional assignment. I was on one coast this morning, and I'm near the other coast tonight. Back at home tomorrow after 5 days on the road. I did have a 4-hour DFW layover today, and it was pouring for part of that time. I guess those of you who've stayed in town this weekend know all about that.

I emptied out 2.00" inches of rain from the rain gauge today, which covers probably the past 4 days. I'll be mowing the lawn when I get home!

Any other news going on while I was gone? I see there are a couple of new items on RoundTheMound.com.

More rainfall news

Tuesday night's rainfall total 0.24"
Wednesday night's rainfall total 0.49"

Here's additional information about 2007 rainfall totals from Road reader and FM neighbor Richard Steenson, who's done a good job keeping up with his rain gauge this year:

January 12 - 2.29"
January Total (except 1st week) - 4.57"
January Temperature Range - 26.1 - 74.5

February Total - 0.43" (Year - 5.00")
February Temperature Range - 30.8 - 81.0

March 13 - 1.22"
March 30 - 1.81"
March Total - 4.45" (Year - 9.45")
March Temperature Range - 34.3 - 84.2

April 13 (that night) - only 0.59"
April 24 - 1.65"
April Total - 2.72" (Year - 12.17")
April Temperature Range - 40.5 - 90.0

May 8 (early morning) - 2.20"
May 8 (total) - 2.32" (highest so far this year)
May Total as of 11:00 p.m. May 9 - 4.02" (Year - 16.19")

Stormy night - much more rain!

2.97 inches of rain fell overnight in the official FOX 4 Flower Mound rain gauge in my backyard. That was quite a storm! I wish I'd been keeping a running total of our rain this season, but I'm sure we're past 10-12 inches for the past month or so. My friend has a boat on Grapevine Lake. He says it's great the lake is full for the first time in more than a year.