Raining mud in Texas

[southerngale]

Did it rain mud on any of y'all?



Why Was It Raining Mud?

Many of you called and email about what looked like mud falling from the sky late Tuesday afternoon. By sundown, everything was coated in dirt.

People weren't sure if it was pollution, but it was getting all over cars and windows.

"I don't know, I've never seen this before," said Magne Turoy, who is from Norway. "I'm used to rain, lots of rain, but I've never seen this before."

The dirty rain left vehicles across San Antonio looking like they’d been taken off-roading in the mud. The cars are covered, but that coating is not quite dust, not quite dirt and not quite mud.

International tourists visiting San Antonio stopped News 4 reporter Leila Walsh to ask if the rain in America is often brown. Certainly, it's not and for many that's what makes this so hard to explain.

“I've seen pollen and there's a difference between pollen and caked up debris,” said longtime San Antonio resident Tony Harris. “I detail cars for a living, but I don't know what it is or where it is coming from, but someone has to have an answer.”

There were reports of the muddy rain in Boerne and New Braunfels too.

Storm Tracker 4 Meteorologist Jennifer Broome explains that the heavy winds Tuesday kicked the dust and dirt thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The dust simply combined with the rain as it fell resulting in the ‘muddy rain.’

Basically it's a Texas dust storm meets a rain storm. It's unusual here but dirty rain and even brown snow happen on a fairly regular basis for West Texas and the Panhandle.

San Antonio car washes should be extremely busy Wednesday.

[TexasStooge]

Not here in Dallas/Fort Worth.

That's extremely rare here in the Lone Star State.

[Ed Mahmoud]

From SE Texas thread last night:

Ed Mahmoud Post subject: Re: SE TX/SW LA weather: Spring-like patternPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:16 pm



The rain was followed by dirt. My car was a muddy mess this morning.

[Portastorm]

I can tell you that it definitely rained Mexican mud here in south central Texas. My car had all kinds of muddy splotches on it Wednesday morning, following the rain. A number of cars here in Austin suffered the same fate.

It was interesting that Tuesday evening both our short-term forecast and forecast discussions out of NWS Austin/San Antonio cautioned folks that the rain would be mixed with smoke and dust from Mexico. The muddy rain came primarily with the last batch of precipitation associated with the upper low and did not come as a result of the squall line earlier in the day.

[srainhoutx]

From CRP yesterday...snipet...


FXUS64 KCRP 192009
AFDCRP

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CORPUS CHRISTI TX
309 PM CDT WED MAR 19 2008

.SHORT TERM...CANCELED THE WIND ADVISORY FOR THE SOUTHERN COASTAL
BEND FOR THE REMAINING HOUR AS WIND SPEEDS CONTINUE TO SLOWLY
DIMINISH. HIGH PRESSURE WILL BUILD IN THIS EVENING WITH WINDS
BECOMING LIGHT...THEN SLIDE EAST THURSDAY MORNING WITH WINDS
TURNING EAST AND EVENTUALLY SOUTHEAST AND INCREASING. CLEAR
SKIES...LOW DEW POINTS AND DIMINISHING WINDS WILL LEAD TO COOL
NIGHT ACROSS SOUTH TEXAS. CLEAR SKIES CONTINUE THURSDAY AND
THURSDAY NIGHT...WITH NICE WARM UP THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

ALSO...HAD A LOT OF PHONE CALLS TODAY ABOUT THE MUD AND ASH THAT
RAINED DOWN ON THE COASTAL BEND YESTERDAY EVENING. HIGH RESOLUTION
SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES THE SOURCE REGION FOR THIS WAS A LARGE
DUST STORM NEAR MONTERREY MEXICO AND LARGE WILDFIRE SOUTHWEST OF
MONTERREY.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/productview.php ... n=3&max=61

[HurricaneBill]

::sings::
It's raining mud! Hallelujah! It's raining mud!

[JonathanBelles]

At least it wasn't raining fish to snakes or something like that. lol