The downpours that brought 3 to 8 inches of rain as of Saturday night, and more in some pockets, will be done by Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

For the rest of Sunday morning, people walking the dog or heading out to Circuit of the Americas for the United States Grand Prix can expect “basically, light showers” growing increasingly more isolated, National Weather Service meteorologist Larry Hopper said. (Qualifying at the Formula One race was held Sunday morning, albeit with slick conditions, and the park-and-ride lots are full, according to race officials.) Past 1 p.m., the chances of rain drop to about 20 percent, he said. Temperatures should top out at about 65 degrees, Hopper said.

The overnight lows should drop into the upper 50s, with some of the cloud cover clearing and temperatures climbing early next week into the 70s and then back into the 80s by midweek. But keep the long sleeves handy, because Thursday will probably bring another cold front, Hopper said.

Rainfall in the Austin area was topped at 11.47 inches at Jollyville in Northwest Austin. For the most part, though, rainfall totals were heaviest to the east of downtown Austin, with many places topping 6 inches over 48 hours. To the west of downtown, the areas the feed Lake Travis generally saw lower totals of 2 to 4 inches over the past two days. Lake Travis has risen 2 feet during the weather event.

Drivers encounter light rain and light traffic in southwest Austin on MoPac on Oct. 25, 2015.

Tuesday forecast for Austin: Sunny with a high near 82; clear skies at night with a low near 59.

A cooling trend begins later this week as an upper-level trough, or area of low pressure, passes through Central Texas along with a cold front that will push daily highs down to the 70s.

The rise and fall and rise of El Niño weather

Good morning, Austin! The forecasts this week call for sunny skies and highs in the 80s, but let’s talk about something else: El Niño.

Or, as some have dubbed it, the “Godzilla El Niño.” This winter, the world will experience, according to some forecasts, the third-strongest El Niño in recorded history. It should last through March, and possibly into April, according to Bob Rose, a meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority.

It will also part of a larger, multi-seasonal Austin weather pattern I’m tentatively dubbing El Yo-Yo.

Flash back to early this year: Central Texas was still in the middle of one of the hardest droughts on record. Then came the wet season, one brought on by an El Niño (a cyclical warming of the eastern Pacific that historically has resulted in heavier rainfall in Central Texas). That spring rainfall erased the drought conditions throughout Texas and replenished the region’s main water supply, lakes Travis and Buchanan, which rose from about one-third full to nearly three-quarters full. That wet season also brought spring floods that submerged sections of downtown Austin and devastated other areas, including parts of Hays County. The rainfall put the Austin area on pace for one of the wettest years in recent memory, Rose said.

Then we hit July. The rains all but stopped. The period of July 1 through mid-October saw the fourth-lowest rainfall on record for that time of year, Rose said. Much of Central Texas returned to severe drought; exceptional drought was declared along the eastern edge of Williamson County. In September, inflows into Travis and Buchanan were 4 percent of the historical average. The 99 degree-temperature measured on October 12 was the highest ever recorded for that date.

Rose called this period a “flash drought.”

The weekend’s rains appear to have broken it, Rose said. And with another round of El Niño-inspired rains looming, we’re in for a cloudy, rainy winter and spring, with below-average temperatures. That’s good news for the lakes and the soil; it’s not good if you hate rain boots. It’s also bad news for some parts of the country, such as California. (Tokyo might be in trouble, too.)

But a strong El Niño portends nothing particularly troubling for Central Texas, Rose said. This region may be nicknamed Flash Flood Alley, but historically speaking, the few El Niños that approached the intensity of Godzilla El Niño one have not caused flooding, he said.

“Most of the (flooding has) been displaced away from Texas,” Rose said.

To sum up: very strong El Niño, higher than average rainfall, but odds of flooding no higher than in most years.

Also: Because I think there’s some El Niño-related law requiring it, I feel compelled to acknowledge this:

No? Nothing? Okay, then. In honor of what El Niño is likely to bring us, I’ll wrap up with this rain-related quip courtesy of The Weather Network:

Q: What’s worse than raining buckets?

A: Hailing taxis.

Wednesday forecast for Austin: Sunny with a high near 81, winds will kick up to 15 mph as a front moves through the area; mostly clear at night with a low near 55.

Rainy weather and The Mothership

Good morning, Austin! I’ll be your weather blogger for the morning, and Wednesday should be another gorgeous day. But I’d like to beg your patience so I can tell a story about something fairly trivial: myself.

I hail from the Pacific Northwest, but I’ve always suspected I was sent from the Mothership. The rainy, temperate weather I grew up in? Hate it. I suspect this warm-blooded mammalian exterior is actually just a cover for a cold-blooded reptile living inside me, because I’ve always felt more at home in the kind of blast-furnace temperatures for which the Texas capital is famous.

My point: If you’re like me, you’re not going to like the weather the rest of the week. Because we’re looking at damp, rainy weather, with potentially heavy rains as early as Thursday night.

The rainfall that drenched the region last weekend was probably our plunge into the El Nino-related fall of damp, cool weather. Think of the last few days as an aberration. By Thursday afternoon, clouds will once again be gathering over the Central Texas skies (and in my cold reptilian heart). Rain could begin falling late Thursday night or early Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Austin could get anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain, according to Lower Colorado River Authority meteorologist Bob Rose and KXAN Chief Meteorologist Jim Spencer.

That probably means the “Godzilla El Nino” has finally vanquished its Central Texas arch-foe, the region’s “Flash Drought.”

“And it looks like at least two more storm systems will follow that one over the next two weeks,” Spencer said. “A wetter than normal period looks likely at least through Thanksgiving. If the Climate Prediction Center is correct, wetter and colder than normal weather will continue through winter and much of spring.”

Ugh. Okay, to brighten the mood before months of darkness, I leave you with this observation, courtesy of theweathernetwork.com:

Q: What is a meteorologist’s favorite reptile?

A: A blizzard.

National Weather Service

Thursday forecast for Austin: Mostly sunny with a high near 79 but turning mostly cloudy at night with a 40 percent chance of rain and a low around 66. Chances of rain increase to 70 percent on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

Looking ahead to Halloween in Austin

Good morning, Austin! It’s nearly the end of October, it’s nearly the end of the week, and let’s be honest. It’s time to talk about Halloween.

The weather is not going to be great. The clouds that rolled in last night are going to stick around and probably dump some rain. Those clouds are, in a sense, the first vapors of the “Godzilla El Nino” looming over the winter and spring. (Don’t worry, though, it’s not the frightening Godzilla, it’s the benevolent Godzilla, and it’s less threatening to the Hill Country than it sounds.)

Bottom line: if a poncho is not already part of your Halloween costume, bring one.

Oh, what’s that? You want to talk about Halloween some more? You wish someone had written something in-depth about Austin’s crazy Halloween party, when as many as 80,000 people pack into a seven-block radius of bars? Well, you’re in luck. I just wrote that story.

Were I your attorney, I would advise you to read that story if you’re planning to head downtown. And I would advise you to read that story if you aren’t planning to head downtown, because you’ll get the feel of East Sixth Street without having to, like, go there. And you’ve never seen Halloween through the eyes of a bartender, a bar owner or the president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. And there’s a really weird toad …

If you’re curious: I’m not going to East Sixth Street this year. I’ve got a party to attend. I’ll be dressing as Clark Kent. Because I wear glasses anyway. And y’all know what my day job is …

In the spirit of the upcoming weekend, and all the glories it could bring, as long as the rain doesn’t ruin it, which we’re all hoping it won’t, I leave you with this:

And this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj5mDw4fO6E&w=640&h=390]

Rock on, Darth. Rock on.

National Weather Service

Friday forecast for Austin: A flash flood watch has been issued for the Austin metro area until 10 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service says. A flash flood watch means flooding is possible in or near the watch area.

Meanwhile, a flash flood warning, which means flooding is imminent or occurring, has been issued for parts of Hays and Blanco counties until 9 a.m. Friday morning.

Storms are moving into Central Texas that are expected to produce 1 to 3 inches of rain before 9 a.m., the weather service says, and more is expected over the same areas later in the day. Total rainfall amounts in the flood watch area should average 2 to 4 inches with isolated areas getting as much as 6 inches, forecasters say.

The National Weather Service is warning those with outdoor plans during the day and on Friday night to be on alert for lightning, which could disrupt activities.

The main concern for the weather service is the locally heavy rainfall that will hit parts of the Austin metro area that already got several inches of rain last weekend and the soils are saturated. Any persistent heavy rain could result in flash flooding, the weather service says.

With temperatures warming up slowly during the day, the threat of small hail, damaging winds and possibly a tornado exists — but the weather service says that even if any tornado were to develop, it would be short-lived and weak.

Any tornado threat would diminish by nightfall, forecasters say, as the line of storms moves east across Central Texas late Friday and into early Saturday morning. The weather service says the threat with this complex of storms will be straight-line winds and heavy rainfall.

It was a dark and stormy night — that clears by Halloween

Good morning, Austin! So we know there’s a decent chance that tonight is going to be a wet mess, and it will probably be more stormy than last weekend (with high winds and hail possible, along with a slight chance of weak tornadoes). But it looks like trick-or-treating has been saved! The weather is supposed to clear by Saturday night.

Also, remember to change your clocks this weekend. Daylight Savings Time ends as Saturday becomes Sunday − I think that’s how it works − meaning an extra hour to indulge in Halloween or an extra hour to sleep, depending on your preference.

In other news: some of you may have noticed that our web site was a little glitchy this week. (Sorry about that, everyone). So if you’ve missed some of the Austin area’s recent weather trends and are interested:

• This year, Central Texas has yo-yoed between drought, a wet period, a “flash drought” and, now, a rainy period fueled by the “Godzilla El Niño.” Though this one is forecast to be one of the strongest El Niños on record, it does not portend anything alarming for Central Texas beyond a wetter-and-colder-than-usual next few months.

• That rainy, colder-than-usual period should last until next spring. If you’re like me − if you have a lizard-like love of hot weather and warm, flat rocks − that’s bad news. But it’s actually mostly good news, because rain is, on the balance, a good thing for Central Texas.

• The Halloween weather is going to be cold, though, as noted above, the rains will probably have relented by then. If you’re planning to head downtown for the annual baccanalia on East Sixth Street you should read this story to prepare yourself.  You should also read that story if you aren’t planning on heading down there. Less exhausting that way.

And because this is Halloween weekend, I’ll leave you with this memory of last year’s festivities:

(Luckily for the redshirt, that’s Next Generation getup.)

Crossing guard Margaret Requejo works in the fog on Bluebonnet Lane at Zilker Elementary. (Jay Janner / American-Statesman)

8 a.m. update: The dense fog advisory has been extended until 10 a.m. this morning, the National Weather Service said.

Earlier: Good morning, Austin! Expect another foggy commute this morning. Until 9 a.m. today, there is expected to be patches of dense fog throughout Central Texas that will make it hard for drivers to see more than a quarter of a mile in front of them in some places.

So be aware that vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists can suddenly appear in the fog. Use your headlights, drive slowly and leave plenty of driving space ahead of you.

But after 9 a.m., your weather forecast is bright and sunny with a high of 79 and a low of 60, which means good weather to get out and vote.

Yes, there is an election today. If you hadn’t heard –  the early turnout figures suggest you haven’t – I understand why. There is no governor, president or Earth-shattering election. But I can give you three billion reasons why you should vote. Or I could go with a single word, Austin’s least-favorite word, the one word to rule them all:

Traffic.

(There are also a few local elections around Central Texas, and a statewide proposition intended to help homeowners with their property taxes. More on them below. Polling locations are listed at the bottom of this column.)

First, let’s talk about Proposition 7. If approved by Texas voters, Prop 7 “likely will generate as much as $3 billion a year, and rising, for highway spending by the end of the decade,” according to American-Statesman transportation guru Ben Wear. In a recent column, Ben adds that: “The 11-county Austin district of TxDOT, if current patterns hold, would get about 7 percent of that, or about $200 million a year to start.”

That supplements a statewide transportation proposition voters approved in November 2014. Ben writes that, “Throw (the 2014 transportation proposition) and Proposition 7 together and the Austin area could see upwards of $300 million annually for highway work. That is a huge number in a district that historically got $50 million or less each year for road expansion.”

Seems like a big deal. And remember, if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain that:

Another reason to go vote: $287 million for a new downtown courthouse.

The civil courthouse now used by the county, near the state Capitol, was built in 1876. During this weekend’s storms the courthouse was leaking in seven or eight areas, with water coming through windows and dripping from the ceiling of the first-floor bathroom, said Roger El-Khoury, Travis County’s facilities manager. Whether the courthouse is needed is an under-the-radar but hotly debated notion, according to Statesman reporter Sean Collins Walsh. Advocates argue the old courthouse is dilapidated and too small to handle the case load, while critics say downtown isn’t the right location and note that the courthouse would add to homeowners’ property taxes. Line of the campaign so far, from Genevieve Van Cleve, manager of the campaign supporting the courthouse proposal: “There are rats in the courthouse, and I’m not just talking about the lawyers.”

The debate has coalesced into a battle of lawyers versus developers. But you should vote, even if you your profession doesn’t make for a good variable in the old joke:

Q: “What do you get with five (people of X profession) up to their necks in sand?”

A: Not enough sand!”

It’s still your money – public money – at stake in the courthouse election. And your property taxes. (Also, I feel obliged to admit that reporters probably make for as good a variable in that joke as anyone.)

The clear, voter-friendly weather appears to be on its way out along with election season. The National Weather Service’s 5-day forecast calls for scattered showers Wednesday, the possibility of heavy rains on Thursday and scattered showers Friday and Saturday.

As to the other elections happening today:

There are seven proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution. Among them is one intended to help homeowners by raising the homestead exemption for school property taxes from $15,000 to $25,000 beginning in the 2015 tax year. The increased transportation spending is among these propositions.

Several Central Texas communities are also holding elections of various types. The Georgetown School District, for instance, is asking voters to decide whether it will borrow $161 million to build a new middle school, replace Purl Elementary School and update other campuses. Pflugerville has two City Council seats up for election, in addition to a pair of bond elections, one of which is for a new animal shelter. And the Statesman’s Nicole Cobler reports that in Martindale, which rarely has elections that draws more than one candidate, “election officials somehow lost track of who should be voting for mayor in May, forcing a redo (today) for the first time anyone can remember in the history of the 160-year-old town.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO37Ql91qqM&w=640&h=390]

In the interests of everyone voting: here are the Travis County voting locations (any voter registered in Travis can vote at any of the 168 locations). And here are Williamson County’s voting locations. (I reached out to the election office in Hays County but have not heard back yet.)

Overall, 4 percent of Travis County registered voters went to the polls early, which suggests we’ll have a turnout of around 8 percent. That’s bad. But remember, you can do something about it.

I’ll end by paraphrasing a quote credited to George Jean Nathan: In elections, bad decisions are authored by citizens who do not vote.

National Weather Service

Good morning, Austin! Election Day has come and gone, and with it, apparently, that beautiful sunny weather.

Expect patchy fog before 8 a.m. The temperature will be in the 60s in the morning, then rise to a high near 77 later in the day, though it will be mostly cloudy all day, the National Weather Service said.

Heavy rainfall, and another opportunity for flash flooding, will return to Central Texas on Thursday, the service said.

National Weather Service

9 a.m. update: Some rain has already fallen in the Austin metro area, National Weather Service radar shows. While the rain clouds have passed, more rain is expected throughout the day today, especially this evening.

Earlier: All of Central Texas is under a flash flood watch today through 9 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service said.

Through this afternoon, the Austin metro area could get 2-4 inches of rain with up to 6 inches in some pockets, the service said.

Then, another round of heavy rainfall is expected this evening into Friday morning as a cold front moves through the area, the service said. Generally, another 1-3 inches of rainfall is expected, but the area along and east of the Interstate 35 corridor may get up to 6 inches of rain.

This area has already seen significant rainfall over the last few weeks, so rain runoff could result in rapid flash flooding, the service said.

The all-new American-Statesman weather app is available for iPhone and Android devices. Statesman Weather features include radar, a 7-day forecast, real-time severe weather alerts, as well as the latest weather news and social sharing.

Download the free app in the Apple iTunes store, or download it in the Google Play store.

Or search your respective app store for “Statesman Weather.”

Northbound south MoPac on Thursday morning. (Jay Janner / American-Statesman

After big win, does Central Texas owe the rice farmers?

In case you missed it, yesterday a significant drought-related decision came from the state’s top environmental regulators. They approved a plan intended to keep more water in lakes Travis and Buchanan — bodies of water which are not only good for boating, fishing and swimming, but are the main reservoirs for a million Central Texans.

Those lakes also supply significant amounts of water for rice farmers in South Texas. And the rice farmers and Austin-area interests have been having a years-long tug of war about who should get how much water. Austin says that during droughts it needs all the water it can get to ensure it has enough for drinking and its economy; the rice farmers counter that they’re producing food, and that the Austin area needs to get better at conserving water.

Long story short, the Austin area just won. Big. The state approved a management plan that makes the rice farmers far more likely to be cut off during drought, thus keeping more water in Travis and Buchanan. Perhaps that will help avert the kind of stark visuals we saw at the height of the drought, when the combined storage of Travis and Buchanan was less than a third full, and limestone that had been underwater for decades was exposed. (A couple of years ago I found a pop-top can of Olympia Beer at Lake Travis that I think was from the 1970s.)

A lot of Central Texas officials say that a huge release of water in 2011 to the rice farmers was responsible for those stark visuals, or at least contributed significantly to the water worries. The policies that were in place for managing the lakes created a “managerial drought, just by following the plan,” Austin-area state Sen. Kirk Watson said.

In a twist, most of the rice farmers actually, albeit relunctantly, signed off on the new water-management plan, along with other downstream interests, including environmentalists worried about the health of Matagorda Bay. Basically, it could’ve been worse for them. According to reporting by my colleague Asher Price, the downstream interests appear to be trying to cultivate relationships with the Austin area, as opposed to fighting it. One reason: to secure financial support for reservoirs that help protect their crops.

Think of it this way: with the deluges in Central Texas, a lot of water simply coursed down the Lower Colorado River into the ocean. If some of that water had been diverted into reservoirs, it could have been saved for use by the rice farmers when they want water but can’t get it because Central Texas is in a drought.

Here’s the catch: building reservoirs is expensive. So who should payWatson, a strong advocate for keeping more water in Travis and Buchanan, said it’s time to start having those discussions. After all, the Lower Colorado River Authority, which manages the river’s bounty, has an obligation to protect all of its customers.

“We need to be having serious conversations about how you finance (reservoirs) in way that’s fair, for everyone,” Watson said.

National Weather Service

Friday’s forecast for Austin: There is a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms today, and that risk rises to 60 percent tonight, the National Weather Service said. It will be cloudy, with a high near 70 today and a low around 57 tonight.

Rainfall may briefly become heavy tonight and may result in some ponding on roadways and other minor flooding impacts, the service said. The same risk is possible Saturday morning.

A cold front is moving across Central Texas, the service said. It’s expected to be cloudy Saturday, with a high of 65 and a low of 51. There will be a 60 percent chance of rain.

Sunday will be sunnier, but also cooler, with a high of 63 and a low of 48, the service said.

Although much of the rain expected Thursday night into early Friday morning did not materialize, parts of Bastrop County did get about an inch of rain, according to rain gauges from the Lower Colorado River Authority.

Rainy weekend weather, and the aftermath of the floods

According to this very handy five-day planner published by the National Weather Service, we’re probably in for scattered showers this afternoon and Saturday, with conditions getting a little better Sunday. One thing to keep in mind from here on out: the ground is getting saturated, which makes it less absorbent, which means the threat of flooding (particularly the smaller localized variety) will be higher through what’s predicted to be a relatively wet winter.

Sadly, the San Marcos Veterans Day parade, scheduled for Saturday, has been cancelled because the flooding there has led to a lack of available equipment and staffing.

The Austin City Council is meeting to discuss flooding issues, particularly in Dove Springs, which was hit for the second time in three years with catastrophic flooding on Halloween weekend. The meeting starts at 2 p.m. at City Hall, 301 W. Second Street.

On Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott declared a statewide emergency in response to the recent flooding around the state. The move is intended to free up three million dollars a year to enhance flood-preparation efforts. State officials have not decided which flood-prone areas will get things like more rain gauges and other advanced-warning improvements, or better assessments of the overall flood risk. Hays County was hit particularly hard in the Memorial Day weekend floods earlier this year, however. In  Bastrop County, the Lower Colorado River Authority is also already looking into beefing up its early warning systems at the behest of state Sen. Kirk Watson.

Also, in case you missed this earlier post by the Statesman’s Amanda O’Donnell, you should check out what she writes about the likelihood of tornadoes.

Lastly: if you’re interested, the all-new American-Statesman weather app is available for iPhone and Android devices. Statesman Weather features include radar, a 7-day forecast, real-time severe weather alerts, as well as the latest weather news and social sharing.

Download the free app in the Apple iTunes store, or download it in the Google Play store.

You can also search your respective app store for “Statesman Weather.”

This is shaping up to be a weekend of glorious weather in Austin … for people who want to binge on football or curl up with a book.

The cold temperatures that rolled in yesterday are likely to continue today, with a strong chance of rain, wind up to 15 miles per hour and temperatures peaking in the low-to-mid-40s, according to the National Weather Service. Scattered showers are also likely overnight. Sunday is expected to bring highs in the high 40s.

Last night, temperatures dipped just below 40 degrees at Camp Mabry, and some places saw more than an inch of rainfall.  But, aside from a few low-water crossings being closed, those rains did not have a major impact on the Austin or San Antonio areas, said Mark Lenz, a meteorologist with the national weather service.

He said there is a brief period of respite coming. On Monday, there is only a 20 percent of rain, with highs in the upper 50s and the sun probably peaking through. But, Lenz added, “another front is going to roll in Tuesday.”

Good morning, Austin!

So I have good news, and bad news. Okay, it’s mostly bad. But bear with me.

An Ashe juniper at the Zilker Clubhouse on Wednesday January 6, 2016. JAY JANNER / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

The bad part: We’re about to hit cedar pollen season. Which means, basically, total misery for a fair number of Central Texans. (For those of you who haven’t been here long, Austin has something to set off allergies pretty much year-round, but January is probably the worst, actually. That’s when the epic clouds of cedar pollen begin wafting through the air like a dirty dirty dirty fog that makes life suck.)

The good part: We need your help in describing this particular type of misery as effectively as possible. The world just doesn’t get it. So please tweet out your best five-word description of what cedar fever feels like. Use the #CedarFeverIn5Words hashtag.

Be as vivid as possible. No, you can’t use “sucking my will to live,” which has already been taken. At lunch I threw out “devil jumps up your nose.” But that’s a weak entry, partly because it fails to capture that he also jumps in your eyes, ears, throat, chest and the various systems regulate how you perceive and reason and summon motivation.

To be fair, I threw out that phrase off the cuff, before I knew we were having a contest. Regardless, y’all can do better. We’ll post some of the best entries down below — So let the vitriol fly!

And here are a few from clever Statesman staffers:

Hey there, Austin! So, you may have missed it, but there was a recent weather project calling for multiple inches of Austin-area snow today, and it’s worth talking about.

No, that snow is not going to fall on us. But that prediction is worth talking about. One of the things we’re planning to explore in Weather Watch is the idea of probability in forecasting: the odds of this or that happening, what that probability is based on, how that probability is expressed, and what the general public makes of a forecast.

This “inches of snow” phenomenon is a good example of an ongoing issue: the uses, and misuses, of statistical models.

Our winter tale starts two weekends ago, when Troy Kimmel, an Austin-area forecaster, noticed one of the highly respected weather-modeling systems, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, spit out an interesting result: 6 inches of snow in Austin! With 10 inches on its way to northern Williamson County!!!

Whoa.

Austin’s weather-geek community had some fun with this.

“Monday’s edition of Fun With Computer Models” was how the TravisCountySevereWx Twitter feed, run by a volunteer group that assists the National Weather Service, summed up a projection that had already dropped since Kimmel noticed it.

Luckily, the “Wilco Snowpocalypse” prediction was so ludicrous that it didn’t set the Internet on fire. But sometimes predictions that are more plausible but based on flawed modeling get all over the Internet, said Troy Kimmel, an Austin forecaster and lecturer at the University of Texas. “Weather porn” became a thing. (Though one you shouldn’t investigate at your work computer.) The proliferation of flawed information has undermined a forecasting profession already smarting from the disconnect between what a forecast means and what the public wants it to mean.

For an example of the frustration over that disconnect, I present a Monday tweet from Atlanta’s WSB-TV weather intern Katie Martin, during the recent American Meteorological Society conference in New Orleans:

Forecasting is still a fairly new science. And as forecasting becomes less art and more science, its practitioners rely on increasingly complex mathematical models. Much of the information created by those models is available to the public. But those models are only as good as the variables programmed into them. Time is a particularly important variable. As Kimmel put it: “We can’t even get tomorrow’s weather right. How can we forecast eight days out?”

Michael Lyttle, one of the three people who run the TravisCountySevereWx Twitter feed, which among other services helps the National Weather Service disseminate accurate information, offers a useful rule of thumb. A week or more out, a forecast can give very general long-term guidance, but not specifics. Five days out, people can start to seriously look at forecast specifics. At one or two days out “we have good probabilities of what is going to happen,” Lyttle told the American-Statesman.

Snow never got to the high-probability stage. By the Monday after the initial projection, the amount of snow supposedly on its way to Austin had dropped to 3 inches. By last Tuesday, the model was predicting chilly rain. You can look outside to judge how the projection ultimately turned out.

But wait — odd projections of the type the European model spit out are apparently not a one-time deal:

Hi there, Austin! A little while back, after we wrote about cedar fever season arriving, we asked for help coming up with a way to describe a misery that defies description. You’ve had time for your sinuses to stew in their wet, raw, itchy state. It’s time to take stock of who did the best job of summing up #cedarfeverin5words.

My second-favorite reader entry came from William Ward Wyatt, who made excellent use of video — and anything involving this guy is almost a guaranteed win:

Some will quibble with him not winning. And I’m fine with that. Also in the “arguably best” category is Carolyn Cohagan, who also mixed video and words cleverly:

And this has the sort of Eeyore “no one remembers my birthday” tone I think sums up longtime sufferers:

But Linda O. (man oh man, I really hope that’s her actual name) had my favorite reader entry:

Evocative, meet gross. #winning

So congratulations, Linda O. and the rest of our readers, whose entries were all outstanding. Want to judge the entries yourself? We’ve compiled an updated list.

But know that you have not peaked, and there is a standard to which to aspire. For as usual, Statesman staffer Eric Webb is the conquering hero of the clever wars:

Now that some of you are well into into the “body liquefies through nasal cavities” phase of the year, the misery may have inspired a new level of creativity. If so, tweet it with that #cedarfeverin5words” hashtag!

What the heck happened to the Godzilla El Niño?

That is a question a lot of Central Texans have been asking the National Weather Service, and one posed earlier this week by the Texas Standard. After all, we’re still experiencing an unusually strong El Niño – a cyclical weather pattern in the Pacific characterized by a warming of surface temperatures – and that pattern helped to produce an unusually cool and damp fall/early winter here, as El Niños tend to do. But come 2016 the skies dried up and the weather went through periods of unseasonable warmth. Earlier this week we even hit particularly dangerous wildfire conditions.

So what gives? Is this really what a wetter-than-normal winter should look like?:

AMERICAN-STATESMAN file photo

It could be that the Godzilla El Niño just got tired and needed to catch its breath, as the Texas Standard interview suggested, particularly with May and June typically being rainy months. But Paul Yura, the second-in-command of the National Weather Service office that serves Central Texas, said there is another possible answer. It involves making a distinction between normal El Niños, which crop up every few years, and particularly strong ones, which are rare.

The normal ones tend to bring higher-than-typical rainfall. The really strong ones actually don’t. It’s not clear exactly why. It’s also a distinction that tends not to get raised a lot. There have been only a handful of the really powerful El Niños, which means using them to predict how the weather of future will be is little dicey. (It’s a “small sample size,” in research parlance, a situation that tends to give scientists the heebie-jeebies.)

Still, in light of the (admittedly small) amount of info yielded by previous Godzilla-scale El Niños, today’s weather might not be that strange, Yura said. Perhaps the wet weather of the fall was the anomaly.

Larry Hopper, another forecaster at the Weather Service office, added another possible explanation about why what we’re seeing now might not be that weird. He noted that Central Texas was so far ahead of its typical rainfall totals last year – the second-wettest on record in Austin – that a dry stretch could simply be returning to the totals a typical El Niño yields, totals that are still above normal. Rain does not typically fall in a steady pitter-patter in Central Texas, but tends to come in cycles; an unusually wet period followed by a dry period can still be wetter than usual if they are averaged together.

“We might have had most of our rainfall on the front end,” Yura said.

And, though January may have seemed unusually warm, the average high of 63 degrees was just above the normal average high of 61.5 degrees.

The fire danger may stick around a while. The rains of last year saturated the ground, which in turn led to well-watered foliage, which is a good thing if you like lots of healthy foliage, but can present a problem when the weather turns dry. Lots of well-grown plant life is drying out. That means more fuel added to the fires.

“When we go through a wet period,” Yura said, “it’s usually followed by a high risk of wildfires.”

We’re looking at high temperatures in the upper 70s to the lower 80s for the rest of the week in the Austin area, according to the National Weather Service.

Look, we all know it’s going to get hot again here at some point. Really hot. El Niño won’t stick around forever, and since the start of the year it hasn’t even been delivering the typical cooler-and-wetter conditions to Central Texas anyway. It may even give way this summer to a La Niña, which is basically El Niño’s bizarro twin, bringing hot and dry conditions (and possibly drought). At that point, life gets less pleasant. The rest of the nation will worry or just gawk at how hot and dry Texas can get.

So in the meantime, compare and contrast these two graphics — an Austin area forecast and a weather summary for Buffalo, N.Y. — enjoy:

Bob Rose, the weather guru for the Lower Colorado River Authority, notes in a Tuesday blog post that the temperature in Austin in February has averaged 3.5 degrees above normal. That’ll continue through this weekend, more than likely.

But, Rose adds, forecasts are calling for a cold front to come in Sunday. And that one, unlike a few recent ones, should bring moisture with it. That means some chance of rain Sunday, with thunderstorms and light rain expected Sunday night and Monday. Then a cold front traveling south should clear the skies out and plunge the area’s highs into the (gasp!) 60s.

By the way, the Pope’s visit to Mexico wrapped up on Wednesday. On Thursday he should be back home in the world’s tiniest nation. Just how did the world end up with that tiny nation? This delightful little video explains. Happy Thursday!

You’ll hear it fairly often in forecasts, any may have heard it right before it rained: an “upper-level trough” is on the way. The news may be accompanied by colorful charts. It may not be apparent what a trough actually is, or what it means, aside from some weather being on the way.

We’re here to help translate, along with the good folks the National Weather Service, those running the TravisCountySevereWx Twitter feed, and Troy Kimmel, a forecaster who teaches meteorology at the University of Texas.

The short, short version is that a trough means colder and sometimes wetter weather — and tends to be associated with storms.

First, let’s learn how atmospheric pressure works

The longer version starts with a brief explanation of atmospheric pressure (bear with us):

In low pressure, air way up in the sky is colder than it usually is at that height. Being unusually cold makes it unstable, which then makes air in that part of the atmosphere want to rise. These low-pressure situations are called troughs. The word trough — as in, horse trough — is just a metaphor used to describe a line of low pressure stretching from one place to another. This phenomenon is important partly because sometimes a trough passes over a low-hanging front (the front end of a mass of air moving into an area).

A front pushes air upward, and if there is a trough overhead, the air goes up into the trough. If that air in front of that trough has significant amounts of moisture, that moisture collects as clouds, with those clouds sometimes dropping rain as they pass.

Here is a visual explanation, via the weather service:

A trough usually shows up on weather maps as dashed red or brown lines, Kimmel said.

The counterpart to a trough is a ridge. They tend to be less exciting. A ridge is a line of high pressure, where the air way up in the sky is heavier than usual. It pushes down on the air underneath it. The weight makes the air below it stable. That produces the less-exciting kind of weather. A ridge is usually depicted with a zigging line, Kimmel said.

Think of them as water ripples

Paul Yura, the second-in-command of the National Weather Service’s New Braunfels office, compared troughs and ridges to the ripples in water. The atmosphere, like water, has ripples that roll through it. The cold ripples are the troughs. The warm ones, the ridges.

Things get a little more complicated when talking about “lower level” versus “upper level,” which refers to how high in the sky the trough or ridge is happening. For our purposes, an upper-level trough is two to five miles above the Earth’s surface.

Got it? Let’s now use a real-world example

The nice, clear, stable weather we had been enjoying recently here in Central Texas — suck it, Buffalo! — had been coming from a ridge hanging overhead, Kimmel said. We’d had a few cold fronts come through in recent weeks, but they didn’t bring rain because there hasn’t been much moisture in the air. The majority of the moisture around here generally comes from the Gulf of Mexico, but the gulf had not sent moisture this way in a while.

“When (troughs have) gone through, there’s been nothing to lift,” Kimmel said.

Early Tuesday morning, there was moisture in the air. That moisture arrived, from the gulf, just ahead of the trough and the front. The trough therefore had something to lift. Voila: thunderstorms, and more than an inch-and-a-half of rain.

Once every four years, today happens: Feb. 29. But why do we have leap days, and leap years? With the help of Keely Finkelstein, a University of Texas astronomer, we have five things you should know about leap days:

1. The Western calendar, which uses leap days, is based on the Earth’s rotation around the sun. It takes the Earth 365 days to complete a circuit around the sun. Thus 365 days in a year.
2. Well, it takes roughly 365 days. The actual number is 365.2422 days. Back in 46 BC, when Julius Caesar ordered the creation of a new calendar, his astronomers knew this. The discrepancy meant that every four years, a day was missing, which could mess with endeavors such as agriculture.
3. There was a solution, though. Every four years, that missing day should be added back. Thus, today: February 29.
4. But wait – Caesar’s solution doesn’t quite work. Leap day actually adds too much time to the calendar. Pope Gregory’s people noticed this, too. To account for that discrepancy, the pope decided in the 1580s that every so often we should skip a leap year. So as part of the Gregorian calendar, which we use today, we skipped leap year at the start of every century: in 1700, in 1800, and again in 1900.
5. But wait … wasn’t 2000 a leap year? Yes, it was, actually. That’s because the pope’s astronomers also figured out that skipping leap year every 100 years would take too much time off the calendar. So to account for that discrepancy, some leap days were added back. We observed Feb. 29 in 2000, and we will again in 2100, 2200 and 2300. But to make the math work, there will be no Feb. 29 in 2400 – at least for those people still living on Earth that point.

As Forbes (among others) points out, today is not just Super Tuesday — it’s also meteorological spring.

That’s different from astronomical spring, which is more commonly known just as “spring.”

NASA

Unlike astronomical spring, which has to do with the Earth’s position relative to the Sun, “meteorological seasons are related to the annual temperature cycle,” Forbes contributor Marshall Shepherd writes.

In some cases, it’s useful to group the seasons by temperature, which tends to be close but not the same as where the Earth is in its orbit around the sun, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Click on either the Forbes link or the NOAA site for more details explanations of meteorological spring. And, c’mon, let’s drop the technicalities, Central Texas banished winter quite some time ago.

Well, February has come and gone. It was like it was never here. To me, that’s a fine thing. It was this kind of February:

And what happened to the rainfall El Niño was supposed to bring? It was, and I quote, “El Nada”: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/weather/looking-back-on-warm-february-el-nino-continued-to/nqcFy/