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TWDB Drought Report for September 2, 2014

i Sep 6th No Comments by

No changes in overall drought conditions over the past week, although statewide reservoir storage dropped by about 175,000 acre-feet (~0.6 percentage points), something that’s normal during our typically hot and dry summer months. Drought conditions are expected to decrease in South Texas but continue is much of the rest of the state.

Some notes from Doc Wentzel:

  • The most recent map released by the US Drought Monitor shows little change in the last week. Overall impact included a drop in the area experiencing no drought impacts (Nothing) of more than 3 percentage points.  The area of the state transitioning into or out of drought (D0) was up a corresponding amount.  Other categories of drought from Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) each changed by less than ½ a percentage point. The area of Moderate (D1) or worse drought remains just over 61 percent of the state.
  • Statewide conservation storage dropped about 175,000 acre-feet in the last week (about 0.6 percentage points). Such declines are pretty typical this time of year when demands and evaporation are high, but inflows to reservoirs are low.  Total conservation storage is more than 15 percentage points below normal for this time of year, but that’s still 4.3 percentage points more than last year.
  • As of Thursday, September 4th, conservation storage was down in 7, unchanged in 1, and up in 1 of 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. Reservoirs in the Low Rolling Plains were up 0.1 percentage points, while those in the High Plains were unchanged.  The largest decline (0.7 percentage points) came in the Upper Coast, but two other regions had declines of more than ½ a percentage point (North Central and East Texas).
  • Conservation storage (as a percentage of capacity) increased in 2 of the 20 municipal reservoir systems that we track across the state, remained unchanged in 1, and decreased in 17. El Paso and Wichita Falls were each up 0.3 percentage points. Texarkana was unchanged at 100% full.  Waco had the largest decrease, down 1.1 percentage points.  Temple/Killeen and Tyler were each down 1 percentage point.  Seven additional systems were down at least ½ a percentage point in the last week.
  • The Monthly Drought Outlook for September was recently released by the National Weather Service.  It predicts improvement of drought conditions in South Texas, but continued drought in the Pan Handle, North, Central, and parts of West Texas.

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