Hot Off The Press

TWDB Drought Update for Week of July 18, 2014

 

Drought expanded about two percentage points last week, and state-wide reservoir levels decreased about 50,000 acre-feet. The new drought outlook through the end of October suggests improving conditions in the Panhandle and the northernmost part of the state but continuing and developing drought in much of west, central, and south Texas. The rains late last week will likely result in drought and reservoir improvements for this week.

Note:  This update does not include the big rains in North Texas that occurred late last week.

 

Some notes from Doc Wentzel:

• The most recent map released by the US Drought Monitor shows little change in the last week.  Moderate Drought (D1) was up almost 2 percentage points.  Abnormally Dry (D0) area (considered to be transitioning into or out of drought) was down about 2½ percentage points.  All other categories changed by less than a percentage point.  Across the state, the amount of area degrading in drought condition was slightly more than the area showing improvement.
• Statewide conservation storage was down less than 50,000 acre-feet, or about 1/10^th of a percentage point, in the last week. Total conservation storage remains about 15 percentage points below normal and 2½ percentage points ahead of where we were last year.
• As of Thursday, July 17^th, conservation storage was down in 6, unchanged in 1, and up in 2 of the 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. The Upper Coast had the largest decrease at 1.3 percentage points. The South and South Central Regions were also down ½ a percentage point or more. All other changes were less than 1/3 of a percentage point. The High Plains and Low Rolling Plains were each up 0.2 percentage points.
• Conservation storage (as a percentage of capacity) increased in 5 of the 20 municipal reservoir systems that we track across the state, remained unchanged in 2, and decreased in 13. Beaumont/Port Arthur and Wichita Falls had the largest increases, up 1.2 and 0.6 percentage points respectively. Tyler had the largest decrease, down 1.3 percentage points, but Fort Worth, Nacogdoches, Austin, Corpus Christi, Brownsville and El Paso all had decreases of  ½ a percentage point or more.  All other changes were less than 1/3 of a percentage point.
• The National Weather Service has released a Seasonal Drought Outlook, predicting conditions out to the end of October 2014.  It calls for improvement in northern Texas, including the Panhandle, and in West Texas around El Paso.   But drought is expected to persist in the central part of the state and even expand into southern and coastal Texas.

Download the report.