08/03/2016 Tuesday
Well, we have been bumming about the beautiful weather that we have been having in San Antonio since we arrived on 11th January. We have had many clear sunny days with temperatures often in the high twenties Celsius. These days have often been followed by cold nights. We had a couple of nights rain about three weeks ago that transformed the brown land into green. In the last few days humidity has risen and we are now getting low pressure fronts coming in from California. So we now have dull weather with rain. Thunderstorms and a lot of rain are forecast for the next couple of days. Spring is on its way with trees beginning to leaf and flowers appearing. We are looking forward to seeing the blue bonnets which are beginning to appear in the hills. We have been told that spring does not last very long here. We have also been told that the weather over the past few months has been unusually warm.
The San Antonio area is very prone to flash flooding and after significant events in the early twentieth century measures were put in place to control this. The Olmos Dam was built in the 1920s not too far from down-town. In more recent times the dam has had several upgrades, flood gates have been built at each end of the San Antonio river loop and a flood relief tunnel has been built under the city. These measures have proved very effective.