Although the gorgeous weather this past week invited jealousy from our northern friends and family, it wasn’t a great week for drought relief. Exceptional drought, the worst category, reappeared in Central Texas and strengthened its hold on North Texas. State-wide reservoir volumes held steady.
A few notes from Dr. Wentzel:
· In the last week, most of Texas was dry and mild. The results are shown in the most recent drought map from the U.S. Drought Monitor for conditions as of Tuesday, February 10th. There was an isolated spot of improvement in the Panhandle, but conditions got worse in other parts of the Panhandle and in Central and North Central Texas. Exceptional (D4) Drought jumped more than 1½ percentage points, expanding in North Central Texas and reappearing in Central Texas. The area of Moderate (D1) or worse drought was up about ½ a percentage point to just over 39 percent of the state.
· Statewide conservation storage was down less than 10,000 acre-feet in the past week. Current storage is about ½ a percentage point better than this time last year, but still 16 percentage points below what is considered normal for this time of year.
· As of Thursday, February 12th, conservation storage was up in 4, unchanged in 2, and down in 3 of 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. The Trans Pecos had the largest gain, up 0.4 percentage points. The Upper Coast had the largest decline, down 0.6 percentage points. All other changes were 0.2 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 4, and decreased in 10. El Paso had the largest gain, up ½ a percentage point. Nacogdoches and Corpus Christi had the largest decreases, down 0.6 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively. All other changes were 0.2 percentage points or less.
· The Monthly Drought Outlook for February from the National Weather Service remains the same as last week. They expect no drought improvement during the month and even a little drought expansion in the Red River Valley. Next week, they will be releasing a Seasonal Drought Outlook showing expected conditions through the end of May 2015.
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