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TWDB Drought Report for Week of April 5, 2105

i Apr 5th No Comments by

Statewide drought and reservoir conditions remained relatively unchanged compared to last week with a slight decrease in statewide water storage. Although the drought outlook through the end of June indicates improvement, the outlook through the end of April shows mostly continued drought conditions with slight improvements along drought’s edges in central and north-central Texas.

A few notes from Doc Wentzel:

·         April 1st brings a bit of a wrinkle to the reservoir “percent full” numbers.  A few reservoirs around the state have seasonal pools adjusted upward on that date. Later in the year they’ll be adjusted back down, causing a similar wrinkle in the fall.  For example, Lake Kemp storage volume is about the same this week as last, but on April 1st the total conservation capacity (how much water is available for use when the reservoir is full) was adjusted from 245,300 to 268,800 acre-feet, resulting in a “percent full” drop for the week.  That’s impacted both the Low Rolling Plains Region and the City of Wichita Falls this week.  Looks like things got significantly worse for those areas this week.  In reality, their total volume of conservation storage is just about the same.

·         The most recent map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows little change in the last week. A small area near the coast transitioned from Abnormally Dry (D0) to completely free of drought impacts (None).  But larger areas in the Panhandle experienced a worsening of drought conditions. The area of the state in Extreme (D3) Drought was up almost 1½ percentage points. Exceptional (D4) Drought was unchanged. The area of the state in Moderate (D1) or worse drought crept up less than ½ a percentage point to about 36.5 percent. In the last eight years, we’ve only ended March with less area of the state in Moderate (D1) or worse drought one time (2010).

·         The gain in statewide reservoir conservation storage has slowed, up only 200,000 acre-feet (or about 0.2 percentage points) in the last week. That still extends to 6 straight weeks our current run of improvements in statewide reservoir conditions. As of April 2nd,  statewide storage has reached 70 percent of capacity for the first time since August 2012. Current storage is 5½ percentage points better than this time last year, but still about 13 percentage points below what is considered normal for this time or year.

·         As of Thursday, April 2nd, conservation storage was up in 3, unchanged in 3, and down in 3 of 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. The largest gain this week was in the South region, up 0.3 percentage points. The Trans Pecos had the largest decline, down 2.4 percentage points. The amount of water in conservation storage in the Low Rolling Plains region was down about 1,000 acre-feet in the last week. But an increase in storage capacity (adjusted upward by about 23,500 acre-feet on April 1st) resulted in a relatively large drop (0.9 percentage points) as measured by percentage of capacity.  All other changes were 0.1 percentage points or less.

·         Conservation storage (as a percentage of capacity) increased in 6 of the 20 municipal reservoir systems that we track across the state, remained unchanged in 7, and decreased in 7. Waco and El Paso had the largest gains, up 0.8 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively. Wichita Falls had about the same amount of water in conservation storage this week as last. However, the capacity of their system was adjusted upward by 23,500 acre-feet on April 1st (a seasonal adjustment that occurs every year), resulting in a drop of 1 percentage point in contents as a percentage of capacity. The next largest decrease was Nacogdoches, down 0.4 percentage points.   All other changes were 0.3 percentage points or less.

·         The Monthly Drought Outlook from the National Weather Service for April anticipates little change for Texas.  Some drought removal is expected along the eastern edges of drought areas in Central and North Central Texas.  Other areas of drought are expected to persist.  On the brighter side, no new areas of drought development are expected!

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