Heavy rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning brought relief to area pastures -- and some extra sleep time for Lampasas Independent School District students.

The LISD delayed the start of classes Thursday until 10 a.m., as the National Weather Service in Fort Worth issued a flood warning for the Lampasas River near Kempner.

The river rose to 14.87 feet by 3 a.m. Thursday. Flood stage is 18 feet.

“Minor out-of-bank flooding” was forecast, as the river was expected to exceed flood stage and reach a high point of 19 feet. The previous crest of 18.6 feet was recorded on June 27, 2007.

At press time, the NWS was predicting the Lampasas River would recede below flood stage by early afternoon.

Several low-water crossings were impassable early Thursday morning, said Shane Jones, LISD business manager. By starting school at 10 a.m., the LISD avoided having to use one of the district’s bad weather days, Jones said.

The Lometa Independent School District followed its normal schedule Thursday.

Almost 5.5 inches of rain fell in Lampasas on Wednesday, according to the archives of www.weather.com, The Weather Channel’s Web site. Lampasas also got 0.57 inches of precipitation for Tuesday, according to weather.com.

As of 2 a.m. on Thursday, Betty Rials had received 5 inches of rain at her home in Adamsville.

In addition, the Lampasas River and Lucy Creek both were flowing well Thursday morning, said Rumley resident Christine Groves. Mrs. Groves got 4.65 inches of rain on Wednesday and Thursday.

East of Kempner, F.A. Taylor received 4.5 inches of rain from Wednesday night through Thursday morning at about 8:30 a.m. The rain fell steadily throughout most of the night but came down heavily at about midnight and 1 a.m., Taylor said.

At Nix, Lynn Wernette got 3.8 inches of rain.

“My front tank is just brimming over,” she said.

A two-day rainfall total of 2.2 inches fell at Travis Herring’s ranch north of Lometa. Although his three stock tanks did not fill completely, Herring said all of them captured some runoff.

Forecasts call for mostly sunny skies with little likelihood of rain through Monday. High temperatures are expected to be in the lowto mid-70s, and lows are predicted to be in the low 50s.