Amarillo Flooding Isn’t Done: More Storms This Week

The flooding from the last storms in Amarillo still hasn't fully subsided. John Stiff Park still looks like a legitimate lake, and there are several other places that are in the same position. There's a stretch on the loop where it looks like the water is 12 feet deep. It's not, but it looks like it.

Now, we're looking at even more thunderstorms this week, and it could dump a fair amount of rain here. Any rain that falls is just going to sit on top of the standing water we already have. Not ideal, but as we say, we need the rain.

Was This Expected This Fall?

Once I realized we had even more storms coming, I got curious. I started looking into whether or not fall was supposed to be this wet. Where did I turn? Of course, the Old Farmer's Almanac. I mean, it's supposed to be the psychic when it comes to what we can expect, right?

Huh, maybe not. What we've already seen in Amarillo exceeds what was predicted. For October, temperatures were supposed to be an average of 50 degrees. We haven't come close to that, with most days being 20 to 30 degrees warmer than that. Precipitation expectation for October? 0.5 inches. Yeah, I think we're pretty well past that at this point.

We are in a stretch right now where the almanac is predicting "Sunny, then rain and snow showers; cold". Rain? Sure, I believe that. Snow showers? That's laughable in so many ways.

What Is Winter Supposed To Look Like?

You know, that's a really good question. At this point, I'm finding it hard to trust anything the almanac says. I know sometimes they get it right, just like any meteorologist; however, what the almanac is saying is already hard for me to believe.

It predicts we will have above-average temperatures and below-normal precipitation and snowfall. However, El Niño is in the mix this year. What does El Niño bring with it? You guessed it: cold weather, sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Those are two very conflicting things, right? I'm not optimistic that anyone is right.

I guess Wonderland is open for the winter...just in the sense that it'll feel like we're on a carnival ride when it comes to the weather.