how hot is it in texas?

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

fffuuuuuuccckkkkkkk!!! austin is surrounded by wildfires right now. yesterday was like dante's inferno w/ at least 5 wildfires in the area - all heavily populated. bastrop is the biggest one at about 20,000 acres and 400 homes destroyed. steiner ranch (kw - that's where brian lives, up at the smooth part of lake austin) had to evacuate the entire subdivision and they closed all of rr620 to get people out and firefighters in. 40 homes gone. other fires around austin out at lake pflugerville, cedar park, dripping springs and i may be missing one.

RampageWake · Posted: Sep 05, 2011 6:28 am Post subject:

Have a friend who is DPS in Bastrop and they are cutting fences to let the horses and cattle escape, it sounds terrible. There was a fire just North of LaGrange that they finally got under control last night also. It's bad out there for sure...

vette74 · Posted: Sep 05, 2011 8:58 am Post subject:

There was a fire next door to my parents ranch in Sheridan yesterday but they got it under control before it got tho their property. My deer lease had a 65k acre fire this year they aerial sprayed my travel trailer so it saved it Very Happy

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

i can see both the steiner ranch and bastrop smoke from hilltops near my house. the bastrop one is ridiculous - it spans the horizon and makes it look like the sky is upside down. all gray from the ground halfway up the sky and then blue at the top. surreal.

TnR6Rida · Posted: Sep 05, 2011 6:58 pm Post subject:

One of my good friends had to evacuate from their house down there a few hours ago. She said it was crazy like a scene from a horror movie.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

this is looking north/northwest towards the leander and steiner ranch fires

this is looking towards bastrop

not my pics, but those fires are 20+ miles away from the person taking the pictures.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

that's lee over to the right. we have no clouds over texas - that's the fires.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

try to ignore the chick. notice the islands and giant white beaches that shouldn't exist.

goofyboy · Posted: Sep 06, 2011 3:27 am Post subject:

when did they get the fire plane?? last i read, there were no planes in the area or was that just the big DC10?

jesus - travis looks awful.

i have friends in Steiner Ranch, as well as all over Austin.

There was a fire 4 blocks south from my house on saturday. The magnolia fire is not contained, based on reports this morning. West Houston / Katy area is a HUGE grass fire waiting to happen.

No rain in the forcast for the next 10 days.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

man, this thing is just killing me. i've got 2 of my best friends and at least a half dozen other friends evac'd from their house out at steiner. real good buddy i used to work with is a firefighter out at volente, so he's been on the front lines since they started. one of my pledge brothers is a ranger at bastrop state park, and it's mostly been the state park that's burning. they are hoping the break the dozers cut yesterday hold and save their house. an ex's dad is scrambling to move a hundred or so head of cattle off his land before the fire gets there on the east side of the bastrop blaze. another of my best friends is a vice principal at the hs out in the next subdivision from steiner and that's the big shelter and evacuee information/control center so he'a been going for 48 hours straight. Crying or Very sad

goofyboy · Posted: Sep 06, 2011 5:31 am Post subject:

If the wind picks up bad today, the state will be easily overwhelmed. Magnolia fire is contained at the moment.

I have seen that Bastrop is not contained and headed for smithville. Hopefully they made progress last night.

Steiner is supposed to be in better shape today - containment wise. I have a friend there and her house was spared.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

steiner is pretty much contained. power has been restored to a large chunk of the homes and some folks may be able to go home today.

bastrop and perdenales are the 2 big boys in the austin area right now. winds are low, temp is low (high of only 90 today) and dew point is rising, so at least they are getting some kind of break.

2 of my co-workers were in the middle of the leander fire yesterday and were just talking about their evac and watching their neighbor's homes just 2 and 3 streets over go up like they were tissue paper.

here's a pic from smithville looking east taken yesterday afternoon. that's where my ex's dad is.

vette74 · Posted: Sep 06, 2011 6:13 am Post subject:

Here is the best website I have found to view the location of active and recent past fires.

http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.shtml

jason_ssr · Posted: Sep 06, 2011 9:01 am Post subject:

I was in Leander at my folks house all weekend. The front of their neighborhood was evacuated yesterday. Their place is up in the hills in the back of Crystal Falls. It was a couple of streets north of their church on Sunday, so my dad and I went up there and turned on all the zones of all the irrigators and soaked everything in site in hopes it might slow it down at least, if it came that way.

Nor*Cal · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 9479 City: Sac

Wow. Hope everyone stays safe.

K-dub · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 14760

Woke up and went outside yesterday morning and all of Corpus was in a smokey haze and smelled like smoke all day long, made for a really crazy sunset last night as well. The strong north winds and the cold front that blew through sunday night brought the smoke 200+ miles south straight to us. Not smelling or seeing it today though. Kinda crazy what is going on up there. Reminds me of 3-4 years ago out in California when it seemed the whole state was on fire.

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

howabouttheiris · Addict Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 677 City: Austin, TX

Record was 69, now at 82 (with 2-3 more coming this week).

Probably more interesting is the 28 record highs so far (again with 2-3 more coming this week)

jt09 · Ladies Man Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 22083 City: Austin

well, it was not as hot this summer, and we actually got a bit of rain, but it's nowhere near enough. pics: http://www.statesman.com/gallery/news/central-texas-drought-100613/gCD2t/#3959796

goofyboy · Posted: Oct 07, 2013 5:19 pm Post subject:

That's unreal. We need a good tropical storm late in the season to sit NW of Austin. I've seen the lake rise a foot an hour during a good thunderstorm.