As rain poured across San Antonio on Monday, officials at Night in Old San Antonio (NIOSA), one of Fiesta’s busiest events, continued the decades-old tradition of hanging the Rain Rock at La Villita.
Even so, the rain has persisted, and the National Weather Service has now issued a Flash Flood Warning for a large swath of Bexar County until 6 p.m.
“It’s kind of a little misty out here right now, but we want great weather for NIOSA,” event Vice Chairwoman Monica Reyes told KSAT. “So, we’re hoping the Rain Rock ceremony wards off the rest of the rain.”
NIOSA officials have hung the Rain Rock since 1970, when then-Chairwoman Joanna Parrish learned about a West Texas folk practice of hanging a rock from a pole to ward off bad weather, or so the story goes.
Some years the tradition has worked. Others, it hasn’t.
This year may be one of those years the Rain Rock fails to do its job.
The National Weather Service predicts storms will linger in San Antonio through Wednesday with a break in precipitation on Thursday. More storms are predicted to roll in Friday.
Then again, South Texas weather has been known to change quickly and unexpectedly, so Fiesta fans may not want to scrap their plans just yet.
As of press time, NIOSA is still expected to run Tuesday through Friday, although umbrellas and rain gear may be in order. Advance tickets are available at the NIOSA website.
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