HOUSTON – I get questions like this quite often…
"Hi there - love you, watch you guys every single day! My work colleagues and I have a question for you. We work off of Telge Road near 290 - close to Cypress and Jersey Village. Why does this area ALWAYS get the 20% chance of rain - ALWAYS. We sure don't at our homes - and that's north, west, and south - all over the place."
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Thanks, Becky Beck
Here is another example…
"Take yesterday for example…..big rain storm headed our way (Bentwater) towards Lake Conroe and the storm splits and goes to the East and West around the lake. This happens far more than not.
What's the scoop, is there really some 'Lake Factor' that is involved."
Regards, Bill Goddard Bentwater
Questions like this are common in weather patterns where the rain is scattered, isolated or widely separated.
Geography plays a big role in determining who receives rain and who doesn't. It is all about soil moisture boundaries. Storms create updrafts and downdrafts. The lifting moves the moisture from the surface of the earth to the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere. The downward motion brings down the rain. In that lifted area there isn't any rain, and most times those soil moisture boundaries are where you'll find the updrafts. Look around your area. Where are the lakes, pavement, farming land, grass, etc? Those lines, many times, will determine where the rain falls and doesn't.
A few years back a scientist proposed laying down miles and miles of black top pavement in parts of the deserts in Africa. His theory was the blacktop would heat up more than the surrounding desert, creating more heat and lift to make the pavement the updraft area and the desert the place that gets rain. Cost prevents this theory from being tested, but hopefully you get the idea how soil moisture boundaries work in determining where the rain falls.