We saw small improvements in drought conditions over the past week; however, current conditions are the best they’ve been since November 2010, close to the beginning of the current drought. Nevertheless, state-wide reservoir levels remain 16 percentage points—nearly 5 million acre-feet (1.6 trillion gallons)—below normal for this time of year.
Some notes from Dr. Wentzel:
· The most recent drought map released by the U.S. Drought Monitor, for conditions as of Tuesday, January 27th, shows mostly improvement, primarily in Central Texas. Other areas of the state were unchanged. The area of the state free of drought impacts (Nothing) increased by about 1½ percentage points. Exceptional (D4) Drought was unchanged, but all other drought categories were down, if only by a few tenths of a percentage point. As a result, the area of Moderate (D1) or worse drought was reduced to just over 39 percent of the state, the best value for this measure since November 2010.
· Statewide conservation storage was up about 140,000 acre-feet (about 0.5 percentage points) in the past week. Current storage is about 1 percentage point better than this time last year, but still about 16 percentage points below what is considered normal for this time of year.
· As of Thursday, January 29th, conservation storage was up in 8 and unchanged in 1 of 9 climate regions with reservoirs across the state. The Low Rolling Plains was the only region that did not see improvement. The Upper Coast had the largest gain, up 2 percentage points, but three other regions were up more than ½ a percentage point (Trans Pecos, North Central, and South Central).
· Conservation storage (as a percentage of capacity) increased in 10 of the 20 municipal reservoir systems that we track across the state, remained unchanged in 8, and decreased in 2. Waco and Fort Worth had the largest gains, up 1.6 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively. Two other systems (Dallas and Austin) were up ½ a percentage point each. Midland-Odessa and Wichita Falls were each down 0.1 percentage points.
· The National Weather Service’s Seasonal Drought Outlook remains the same as last week. Through the end of April, it anticipates that drought will persist or intensify in most areas of the state impacted by drought, but drought is not expected to develop in any new areas of the state. The Weather Service will release a Monthly Drought Outlook for February next week.
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