The weather can be a quiet topic with not much to say or a very talked about
subject with weather making the morning and evening news top stories. While the
weather is always changing sometimes it goes to the extreme and you hear much more about the weather than you normally would. The recent flooding in Texas and extreme heat in the West are the current weather topics.

Texas Flooding

Texas has declared it's worst flooding in over 50 years with the recent 3 weeks
of rainfall that the state endured. The gulf of Mexico had moist bands of air that combined with low pressure systems which stayed over Texas and dropped near record rainfall on the state. This is the first time since 1957 that the states major river basins are at flood stage. Texas Governor Rick Perry issued state disaster declarations for 44 counties in Texas and President George W. Bush is declaring six of the counties as federal disaster sites.

Texas has seen rain since late into May and it has left behind flooding, filled rivers and lakes to the top, damaged and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and 15 people have been killed during this time. Last year Texas saw it's driest weather ever with deadly wildfires and over $4.1 billion in livestock losses
and crop damage. So far to date Lubbock, Texas has received 17.39 inches of rain which is an inch less than the amount they would normally see in a year.

The Heats On In The West

While Texas is dealing with a flooding situation the West would be happy to have some of the rain move into the region. The West has suffered through and oppressive heat wave with temperatures in the 3 digit numbers on the thermometers. The areas that have been affected by the extreme heat are Montana, Washington State, Oregon, Utah, Nevada and Idaho. While Montana does
see temperatures over 100 it is usually not until August. Records were either set or tied in Great Falls and Billings at 104 degrees each. While Boise, Idaho had a high temperature of 105.

Another danger with the extreme heat is the fire danger and much of the West
has a red flag warning being posted.

So while we are seeing some extreme weather we have not yet seen any hurricane activity. Of course than can always change as the weather is always constantly changing.
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