Texas weather: Local rain and flash flooding

For many central Texans, this summer has felt different than usual. Instead of triple digit heat and dry conditions, it's been rain and lots of it. This is 80 year old catfish Kelly. He's finally back to his routine. That may just be his secret to staying in shape. If there is a secret, yeah, he tries to swim Barton Springs Pool twice a day. I usually swim for about 2025 minutes, but recent flooding kept him away for about a week after heavy rain. Last month, crews had to remove debris from the pool before it could reopen. I suffered. I went to deep Eddie some, but it's you know, it's not the same. The recent rain also changed plans for Joseph Jeffers and his two boys. My son Jacob is supposed to be at camp today and they canceled it because of the weather. So he brought his sons to see the high water. I didn't even see that. This is Memorial Park, Brushy Creek and Round Rock. I wanted to show him how strong the water is. I wanted to show him how dangerous it can be and how we need to stay safe in these circumstances. The rain also creating hazardous conditions on roadways. And at low water crossings, it's not what we normally expect this time of year. Jason Runyon with the National Weather Service says July is typically one of Central Texas is drier months. We only average about 2 inches of rain in July. And of course, so far this has been a pretty wet July to start off. It follows what was already an extremely wet June. One of our weather ones in recent years, and even one of our top 20 or 30 wettest Junes all time. So what's behind it? One is the unusual amount of moisture that we have in the atmosphere that's at near record levels for this time of year. Based on some of the weather data that we've launched. So we have a lot of moisture just sitting there and the second thing is the triggering mechanism to generate the thunderstorms. We have this broad trough of low pressure that's developed. They have a ridge of high pressure that's actually shifting to the northern plains is bringing them kind of record heat up in the northern US and South of that. It brings storms. The rain has provided some relief from the drought. Runyon says parts of Central Texas have improved significantly, with some counties no longer in drought conditions at all. But the rain is coming so fast, it's also creating flood concerns and we're seeing from rainfall rates with these storms. Two to four inches per hour, which is a lot of rainfall in one hour. That kind of rain can quickly overwhelm creeks, low water crossings and city streets.