San Antonio's Rockstar Turned Realtor®

photo courtesy of pokpok313

Are we there yet?

After quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks, San Antonio has had it's Stage Two Water Restrictions lifted.  In order for SAWS to remove the Stage Two Restrictions, the Edwards Aquifer levels had to remain about 650 feet for at least 30 days (as measured at the J-17 monitoring station).  We achieved these levels back on September 11 (650.1 feet) and have remained above 650 since then.

Break out the sprinklers!

Wait, not just yet.  As Stage Two Water Restrictions are lifted, Stage One Water Restrictions become the enforced policy.  To learn more about what this means, read "Every Drop Counts – Stage 1 Water Restrictions Begin" over at RErockstar.com.  It will take 30 days of water levels in the Edwards Aquifer to remain above 660 feet in order to have Stage One Restrictions removed at which point we will be back to normal conditions with no restrictions in place.

Of course, with all this wet weather we've been having, there is little need for your sprinklers right now anyway.  The ground is very moist and with the cooler weather is staying moist as well.  It's a good idea to not over-saturate your lawns and plants (this can actually cause many diseases and rot), so check soil conditions before deciding to draw more water out of the aquifer.

photo courtesy me and my iPhone

Fall arrives in San Antonio.

After one of the hottest Summers on record here in San Antonio (59 days of 100 degrees or more weather - with 5 of them hitting 104 degrees) and a drought that has looked like it will never end, I awoke to this as the scene in my backyard this morning.  It's not pouring and it's certainly not the kind of Fall I grew up with back in Philadelphia, but today is most certainly not Summer.  Today is the first day of Fall and the weather wanted to be sure we knew it here in San Antonio.

My good friends at KSAT News warned me it was coming and I knew it would eventually, but to wake up to 69 degrees, light drizzle, and an expected high of 79 degrees just proved it to me.  While some of you from parts further north might laugh at 79 degrees signaling the end of Summer, it certainly does here in San Antonio.  Fall has arrived and although I won't get the beautiful leaves of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, if you look close I do have tiny leaves all over my deck.  I've never been quite sure, but they seem like they might be seed pods.  I'm not very good at being an arborist, so I'll just have to accept that I'm not sure of much, except they stick to your feet and get all over the house (which drives my wife nuts).

Of course, here in San Antonio, we still have plenty of great weather ahead of us.  When I first moved here, I was wearing shorts well into November.  Looks like this week will be some rain, but as anyone who lives here can tell you...we could use every drop we can find.

If you're looking for quick and easy weather maps, temperatures, radar, aquifer levels (very important to us in San Antonio), and the ever-amusing "Haircast" - look no further than KSAT News' JustWeather.com.

photo courtesy of me and my iPhone

Trapped in a welcome pattern.

Here in San Antonio, we've been crying for rain for sometime now.  This summer was blistering hot and Death Valley dry.  The past few days have seen showers and thunderstorms pass through town and you can see the relief on San Antonio residents' faces.  Yesterday on RErockstar.com, I posted "San Antonio Camera Phone: Here Comes The Rain Again."  If you jump over there, you'll see the looming clouds that soon brought rain.

I took the photo on my way home from RE/MAX Access in Garden Ridge, heading westbound on the 1604.  A few minutes after the photo, the skies opened up.  Of course, I had to stop by the grocery store (you always need to when it's raining it seems).  Heading through the HEB at 7951 Guilbeau Road (map) and grabbing a few items to complete my dinner for the night, I was convinced that tornadoes would be swirling around when I left the store.  Instead, I was greeted by the view in the image above.  Not only did we get rain, but we even had a rainbow to go with it.  A welcome site here in San Antonio.