An area of moisture moving northward into Texas this weekend will bring heavy rain to areas from McAllen to Houston.
As drenching thunderstorms develop in the valley on Saturday afternoon, periods of rain will begin to impact San Antonio and Houston.
The heaviest rain will be confined to the southernmost region of Texas.
“The bulk of the rain will fall on lower Rio Grande Valley during Saturday night,” AccuWeather Expert Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said.
The recent lack of rainfall has put parts of the valley under severe drought conditions, so rain is likely to be a welcome sight for residents and farmers.
However, the drenching storms will also bring the threat of localized flooding on Saturday night.
“While the rain is needed over the region, enough rain can fall to cause flash and urban flooding in some communities,” Kottlowski said.
“Those living near streams and creeks or in low-lying areas should be prepared to move to higher ground if flooding becomes imminent, and motorists should always take caution not to drive through flooded roadways,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Kyle Elliott said.
The main area of rain will push out of the Rio Grande Valley on Sunday, while it targets areas farther north between San Antonio, Houston and Corpus Christi instead.
“Indications are that rainfall will likely be above average over the region through April,” Kottlowski said.

Daxon: Water everywhere … so where’s the drought?.
I think my sprinklers have been turned off for at least six weeks, and my yards and trees look better than ever.
“We remain in a drought, but it is no longer an emergency,” said Wayne Osborne, Municipal Water District of Orange County president.
Tony Olmos, Brea’s public works director, explained we are in the fifth year of a drought and, for now, our water use restrictions are still in force.
Until April 1, we are still restricted to watering our yards only on Mondays before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m., and not within 48 hours of a rainstorm.
Come April 1, Olmos said we go back to Monday and Thursday watering, but that could be increased to three times a week in coming months.
Regardless of whether we are in a drought or not, we cannot go back to daily watering our yards.
Brea has permanent water use guidelines.
And plan to come to the rescheduled Brea Centennial Parade and Picnic on Saturday on May 20.
She gives her perspective on Brea issues twice a month.

Sacramento Man Evacuating From Flood Risk Hit With Drought Warning.
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SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A man tells CBS13 that as he was evacuating out of concerns of flooding, the city of Sacramento hit him with a drought violation for wasting water.
Sacramento remains in a State 2 water shortage, and the utilities department hasn’t stopped its enforcement of drought violators.
Those patrols started in 2014 and the city says they won’t stop until the state declares the drought is over.
On the day that violation came, Zumalt says he was busy preparing for a flood.
During a historically wet winter following a five-year drought, Zumalt is one of hundreds in Sacramento who have violated the city’s strict water conservation rules that are still in place.
A city spokesperson issued a statement reading: Utilities is waiting to change our water storage condition until the governor rescinds the drought declaration.
We are following our mandate.
Zumalt was not fined, only issued a warning.

From El Nino Drought to Floods, Zimbabwe’s Double Trouble.
Africa, Aid, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Food & Agriculture, Headlines, Health, Humanitarian Emergencies, Poverty & SDGs, Water & Sanitation HARARE, Mar 3 2017 (IPS) – Dairai Churu, 53, sits with his chin cupped in his palms next to mounds of rubble from his destroyed makeshift home in the Caledonia informal settlement approximately 30 kilometers east of Harare, thanks to the floods that have inundated Zimbabwe since the end of last year.
From 2015 to mid-2016, the El Nino-induced drought also hit him hard, rendering his entire family hungry.
All my crops in 2015 were wiped out by the El Nino heat and this year came the floods, which also suffocated all my maize and it means another drought for me and my family,” Churu told IPS.
I don’t know what else to say,” Churu said.
With drought amidst the floods across many parts of this Southern African nation, the Poverty Reduction Forum Trust (PRFT) has been on record in the media here saying most Zimbabwean urban residents are relying on urban agriculture for sustenance owing to poverty.
This year’s floods, which are a direct effect of the El Nino weather, are the worst in 35 years and are now even worsening and bearing impacts on farming, health and livelihoods in developing countries like Zimbabwe,” Eldred Nhemachema, a meteorological expert based in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, told IPS.
Consequently, this Southern African nation this year declared a national emergency, as harvests here face devastation from the floods resulting in soaring food prices countrywide, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Based on this year’s February update from the country’s Department of Civil Protection, at least 117 people died since the beginning of the rainy season in October last year.
And for many Zimbabweans like Churu, who were earlier hit by the El Nino-induced drought, it is now double trouble.

So far, the military’s cleanup costs have reached into the tens of millions of dollars, and the contamination has initiated widespread concerns about potential health effects.
Sen. Casey’s language, inserted into the 2017 defense appropriations bill, appears to require the secretary of defense, within 120 days of passage, to provide a report to Congress updating them on the department’s progress.
“The language makes clear that PFCs have adverse impacts on public health and directs the Department of Defense to report to Congress on: One, the number of military installations where the fire-fighting foam was used and two, the impact of contaminated drinking water on communities around these sites,” read a press release announcing the language.
While the Department of Defense has already stated where it believes foams have been used, the speed of cleanup has irked communities such as those in Bucks and Montgomery counties, where pollution from the chemicals continues to flow unimpeded from groundwater at the Horsham Air Guard Station into area waterways.
The defense appropriations bill determines the annual military budget, and this year’s version is already delayed, with the military still operating on 2016 appropriation levels.
Last year, Sen. Casey attempted to insert an amendment into the authorization act that would have required the military to, upon discovery of a contamination at a base, notify local residents and provide them with an alternative drinking water source within 15 days, develop a remediation plan within 45 days, and provide a public status report every 45 days.
However, the amendment ultimately did not survive the budgeting process.
“We worked pretty diligently with a number of Senate offices … it’s very rare to have something like this happen,” Rhoads said.
Two things the language does not include are a requirement for the military to provide funding for blood tests for those exposed to the chemicals, and a health study to determine whether or not residents were made ill. “Senator Casey continues to believe that (the Department of Defense, EPA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) should work together to make available health studies and monitoring for affected communities,” a press release from Casey’s office stated.
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Borough presidents want NYC to provide bottled water, other measures at schools testing high for lead.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined the city’s other borough presidents in a letter to NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, urging the Department of Education (DOE) to take “immediate action” regarding elevated levels of lead in the drinking water at some New York City public schools.
Children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure because harmful effects occur at lower exposure levels in children than in adults.
The “vast majority” of test results were not elevated, according to DOE.
Some local schools that were found to have elevated levels of lead in one or more of their fixtures include P.S.
8 in Brooklyn Heights (four out of 89 water samples), P.S.
29 in Cobble Hill (one out of 73 samples); Automotive High School in Bedford Stuyvesant (31 out of 144 samples); P.S.
They also want schools to offer free lead exposure testing for kids, install water filtration systems to prevent future contamination, and implement lead testing on a regular basis.
“Parents can rest assured that water in schools is safe for students and staff to drink, and there is no need for bottled water,” DOE spokesperson Toya Holness told the Brooklyn Eagle.
“New York City’s drinking water is of the highest quality and the water delivered from the upstate reservoir system is lead free,” she said.

Hundreds of current and former Bucks and Montgomery residents are party to a mass tort lawsuit for personal injury claims against six manufacturers of firefighting foams.
A writ of summons was filed Feb. 22 in Montgomery County court by Norristown law firm Creedon & Feliciani and others, on behalf of 461 current and former residents and individuals who worked or served on a trio of military bases in the area.
On Wednesday, Creedon & Feliciani stated in a post on its Facebook page that the plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages “as a result of their suffering from injuries/diseases they believe are caused by ingestion, etc.
of water polluted with the chemicals PFOA and PFOS.” The mass tort personal injury suit is separate from several class action lawsuits related to the contamination that have been filed by some of the same firms against the military and foam manufacturers.
Four of the class action suits make similar claims against the foam manufacturers: that their product was defective; that the companies had “known or should have known” the dangers of selling it; and that the companies failed to recall or warn users after its toxicity was established.
However, the class action suits make no reference to seeking awards for personal injuries.
Instead, they focus on winning a blood-testing program and health study, medical monitoring, a private well testing program, and for financial hardships such as cleaning up individual properties or water supplies.
Last month the plaintiffs in the class action suits asked the court to allow them to combine into a single case, and the firms involved are currently preparing a combined complaint, Feliciani said.
New York City law firm Weitz & Luxenberg is interim class counsel, meaning they will serve as a representative of the plaintiffs and firms from each of the individual cases until the court makes a decision about the class action status of the combined case.
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SCIENCE NEWS: NASA data show San Joaquin Valley still sinking; Contaminants in the Bay Delta; California’s rain may shed light on new questions about what causes earthquakes; Slower snowmelt in a warming world; and more ….
In science news this week: NASA data show California’s San Joaquin Valley still sinking; Tainted waters: Contaminants in the Bay Delta; California’s rain may shed light on new questions about what causes earthquakes; Defining snow drought and why it matters; Slower snowmelt in a warming world; USGS Publication: ‘State of the Salton Sea—A Science & Monitoring Meeting of Scientists for the Salton Sea’ and More; Restoring predators and prey together speeds recovery; Six things to know about coastal habitat restoration; Your water on drugs; and ‘Atmospheric rivers’ associated with California flooding also common in the southeast NASA data show California’s San Joaquin Valley still sinking: “Since the 1920s, excessive pumping of groundwater at thousands of wells in California’s San Joaquin Valley has caused land in sections of the valley to subside, or sink, by as much as 28 feet (8.5 meters).
Already, land subsidence has damaged thousands of public and private groundwater wells throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
… ” Read more from FishBio here: Tainted waters: Contaminants in the Bay Delta California’s rain may shed light on new questions about what causes earthquakes: “In recent weeks, California has experienced unusually heavy rainfall.
Earthquakes are triggered by a tiny additional increment of stress added to a fault already loaded almost to breaking point.
… ” Read more from EOS here: Defining snow drought and why it matters Slower snowmelt in a warming world: “As the world warms, mountain snowpack will not only melt earlier, it will also melt more slowly, according to a new study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
“The Sun just isn’t providing enough energy at that time of year to drive high snowmelt rates.” … ” Read more from NCAR’s AtmosNews here: Slower snowmelt in a warming world USGS Publication: ‘State of the Salton Sea—A Science & Monitoring Meeting of Scientists for the Salton Sea’ and More!
: ” … The Salton Sea (Sea) is an ecosystem facing large systemic changes in the near future.
… ” Read more from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center here: Restoring predators and prey together speeds recovery Six things to know about coastal habitat restoration: “Did you know that NOAA’s Restoration Center has been restoring habitat for 25 years?
… ” Read more from Science Daily here: ‘Atmospheric rivers’ associated with California flooding also common in the southeast Maven’s XKCD Comic Pick of the Week … Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post!

(Slide through timeline for more information on the lead problem on campus) The issue of water contaminated with lead coming from Sacramento State’s drinking fountains and faucets goes back longer than the university had previously indicated, and a second phase of testing is set to begin.
Foran said he does not know what happened to the water sources in the Children’s Center, as he was told by the university that University Enterprises, Inc. — not Sac State — owns the Children’s Center, and would not allow Foran’s group to return, though he was told they would remediate the situation.
27 water sources were above 15 parts per billion, which is the EPA action level, meaning they legally must be shut off.
Additionally, the university sent out an email last week saying that after recent testing, all food establishments on campus have water sources under the EPA action level, but the final report on specific lead amounts have not come back.
Foran said the only responsible standard to use in his view is the California Public Health Goal, .2 ppb.
That’s a pretty big leap.” According to Foran, knowing where the untested sources are isn’t easy because the testing group was never provided with a comprehensive list of water sources on campus in the first place; the group made one on its own, and suspected it to be incomplete from the beginning.
When the testing group arrived there, it was told by officials that the suite dorm rooms could not be tested because residents were currently living there.
Sac State, under the direction of Parker, is choosing not to do so just yet without more comprehensive water testing.
Parker said at the time of the hiring that her goal was “using all professional standards in the profession of sampling, for occupational exposure, to make a definitive determination of what the water levels are first.” Foran believes that this step being taken by Parker and the university is unnecessary for multiple reasons.
“To me, the bigger issue here is that there are something on the order of almost 380 fountains and faucets on this campus that have lead concentrations above the California Public Health Goal,” Foran said.

The House voted 63-37 to approve the legislation.
House Bill 2506 would change the type of stream flow measurements the state Department of Environmental Protection uses when it sets the amount of pollution that chemical plants, factories and other industrial facilities can routinely discharge into the state’s waterways.
Under the bill, being pushed by the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, DEP would switch from using a low-flow figure for streams to an average-flow figure, called “harmonic mean.” The change would not increase the state’s actual in-stream pollution limits, but would increase the discharges that chemical plants and other industrial sites are allowed under DEP-approved permits.
“If I believed it was going to harm the water quality of the state of West Virginia, I would be against it.
“So, the overall water quality of the body of water doesn’t change with this bill.” It’s correct that the bill doesn’t specifically change the state’s numeric water quality limits for in-stream pollution.
But by changing the flow measurements used for setting the pollution any particular facility can discharge, the legislation would increase the amount of pollution those facilities can discharge, critics of the bill noted.
“The water standards are not changed,” Lane said.
Neither DEP nor lawmakers have offered any detailed analysis of exactly how the bill would increase pollution allowed in the state’s rivers and streams, or how such increase might affect public health.
I believe we’re better than that.” Another opponent of the bill, Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, strongly disputed suggestions from some supporters that because the bill regulates routine pollution discharges and not one-time leaks like the one in January 2014 at Freedom Industries, the Kanawha Valley water crisis has nothing to do with the bill.
Fleischauer said the water crisis should have shown lawmakers why tough protections for drinking water sources are important.